Is There a Way to Make a Video Go Viral?

First off, let me explain something: There is never a guarantee that a video that follows these steps exactly will go viral. But these tips will certainly help your chances of creating and sharing a viral video. In looking at the success this week of the viral videos in the Kansas University – Missouri University Border War, it’s obvious that an emotionally charged event like the upcoming last basketball games between 100-year college rivals is a good place to start. (Missouri plays host to the Jayhawks on Saturday night at Mizzou Arena, and the school is leaving the Big 12 for the SEC after this season.)

KU graduate Josh Dubois from Footage Productions, saw an opportunity and took advantage of it immediately. On Monday, a group of MU students posted a music video on YouTube called “We Are Mizzou,” that according to Yahoo! Sports, “was a lighthearted pro-Tigers, anti-Jayhawks rap anthem replete with trite lyrics, awkward dancing and lots and lots of Auto-Tune.”

Word spread quickly on Monday. According to the Kansas City Star, “the video has received a mixed reaction – as of Monday afternoon, it had 619 likes and 1,258 dislikes on YouTube, and comments for the video had been disabled.”

Dubois’ friend Jake Hills forwarded the “We Are Mizzou” video to him and suggested doing a response video. Dubois thought it was a joke. “I watched the first 30 seconds of it and honestly thought it was KU people dressed up in MU gear making fun of Mizzou. I was instantly fascinated with the fact that their video was really made viral by KU people sharing it.  It was pretty obvious this was happening because there were consistently double the dislikes as there were for likes on their video as I checked it all day, and they had comments disabled immediately — which is a terrible idea even if they are all bad comments.”

By 4pm the next day, Dubois, Hills, and Spencer Bergstrand had written, shot, edited, and uploaded the “We Are KU” video to YouTube.

I interviewed Dubois about his viral video strategy for “We Are KU” and this is what he had to say:

5 Elements for Viral Video Success

1. Ability to Shoot, Edit, and Upload Quickly – “I said we shoot tonight or tomorrow morning, this is on Tuesday, or we don’t do it at all. We have it edited the same day. I was even called by my buddy in Second City in LA as I was uploading the video because he was planning one with his Second City crew. I told him he was a bit late. Time of the day played a huge part too, but we were just lucky with that.  It was right at 4pm Central so everyone was wrapping up work and could watch (and share) a dumb video.

2. Timing – “Insanely important. We knew going in that we could probably even sacrifice a little story and a little of the comedy if it were released faster. Timing was just way more valuable than even those things and those things are really valuable. I don’t think we sacrificed too much in those areas because of how simple the idea was.”

3. Humor – “It needed to be funny and we didn’t have time to write and record a rap song. First, it was out of necessity in resources: I have even recorded about 15 rap songs in my life — no joke — but I knew we couldn’t do it.  It’s just like Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State: Use your weakness as an advantage! Only we were Will Smith, but in Fresh Prince gear.”

4. Length – Keep it Short! – “That is one of my only regrets. When I got home, I realized the high-five freeze-frame middle should have been the ending. It shouldn’t have been 2:30 even, but we got away with it. Theirs was like 5 minutes and I don’t think I ever even watched the whole thing. 1:30 would have been ideal for us.” (Ed. note – “We are Mizzou” is actually 3:34, even if it feels like 5 minutes.)

5. Aim at a Tech-savvy, Connected, Built-in Audience – “We released a picture of us on the bench just to friends and the response was hilarious. All our friends were very worried and super vocal about the fact that we could very easily make idiots of ourselves. We knew what they didn’t know though, which was that we were not about to rap. That fear built up quite a bit of anticipation in them which definitely helped fuel the immediate sharing. It was watched so many times so quickly that we initially broke the YouTube counter at 305 views.”

KU alum Mario Chalmers RTed the viral video link to his 438,000 followers the day the video was posted.

With all these things in place, Dubois had the perfect recipe for a viral video. Not long after the upload at 4pm Tuesday, things exploded.

“610 Sports and Nick Wright picked it up an hour and a half after it was uploaded which was awesome,” says Dubois. “He was probably responsible for the first and most important push. He talked about it on the radio when he was interviewing the guys from MU. Then the next big name was Mario Chalmers tweeting it to his 438,000 followers. We just retweeted and facebooked all the big-name stuff and that was our only involvement in promoting it after it launched. It then was picked up on KansasSports.net and Yahoo! Sports wrote an awesome article about it saying there has never been a more decisive victory in a video battle than this one. It was on Fox News in KC that night and then lots of big tweets the next couple days.  Yesterday I was contacted by ESPN about it.”

The “We Are KU” video as of 3pm Friday has 132,868 views, with 1,359 likes and 463 dislikes. The “We Are Mizzou” video as of 3pm Friday has 365,480 views, with 2,020 likes and 3,345 dislikes.

ESPN emailed Dubois asking for permission to use the video on both College Gameday and their site. It will be on their site for sure he said, but it might not be on Gameday now because the rights to the $10 stock music track in the background can’t transfer to ESPN. Yesterday, the big news was that the “We Are Mizzou” video would be performed on College Gameday, but it turns out that’s just a social media rumor.

To that, Dubois says, “I think it’s probably for the best. We have had a ton of good responses to our video from MU students and our other rivals K-State. By the way, I would happily challenge any of those bozos to rap battle any day of the week.”

Final Funny (Scary) Post Script: School rivalry runs deep, and people don’t like it when you make fun of them. (Always remember that anything social media is incredibly public.) Somebody contacted Dubois directly on Wednesday.

He explains: “I had my portfolio online with my phone number and so somebody called me the day after claiming to be my doctor. I knew it wasn’t my doctor though, because my doctor isn’t quite as homophobic.” The guy on the other end of the line was calling to let Dubois know that the test results were back — and he was HIV positive.

“I am not sure it was an MU fan, but one would only assume right? I don’t make people mad on a daily basis. I will say this, it’s incredibly hard to report a harassing phone call to the police. You can’t do it over the phone.”

You can “engage” all you want, but when you’re using social media for your company, make sure you are doing three things: Driving business, planning strategically, and measuring your success.

Last night in Wichita for the Social:IRL-sponsored talk (based on his new book) “No Bullshit Social Media Marketing,” Social Media Explorer‘s Jason Falls drove that point home again and again. Social media messages don’t have to be one thing or another, but they do have to hit what he calls the “relevancy bullseye” — the right message at the right time to the right audience.

I grabbed Jason after his presentation and asked him some of the most-often-asked questions by companies still unsure how to integrate social media into their marketing.

His answers are like his book: Straight and to the point. Check out this 7-minute interview with Jason Falls:

Customizing social media to fit your business goals is the next step after getting a thorough online brand audit. First, you have to see what’s out there about your company on the web. Then its time to identify opportunities. When you are putting together a social media strategy, Jason says you have to have clearly defined business goals. An objective statement can be your guide to good solid measurement of your success.

An objective statement has three elements:

• A target
• A deadline
• An expected level of attainment

This will help you PLAN TO MEASURE. If you don’t plan, you can’t measure — because you won’t know what you are measuring.

A couple quick sidenotes from Jason Falls during the Q&A portion of his talk:

1. WARNING: All social media research and statistics may not apply to your business. Don’t listen to “general research” about social media and think that it applies to everybody — it doesn’t. Just because somebody says online that the best time to post a blog is on the weekend because there’s less competition for eyeballs doesn’t necessarily mean that’s true for your market/vertical/business! The only thing that matters is your data. Keep track of tweets and shares for different times of the day and week yourself.

You need to do the work and put in the time yourself to see what works best for your company. Customize your social media program based on your data and your research, not someone else’s. All social media success is full of trial and error.

2. Google has always prided itself on not being evil, but Jason thinks they may have crossed the line and become evil. Google’s new search engine algorithm reportedly makes Twitter and Facebook less important in search and Google+ way more important.

3. Nonprofits are still challenged with raising money via social media. Jason said they shouldn’t just make it about spreading a message to as many people as you can. It’s more about the relevency bullseye: Get the right message to the right people at the right time. Make it personal and “focus the ask.” Social media doesn’t raise money, people do!

4. How Jason Falls manages social media channels: Twitter is quick and more personal, a good way to get a hold of him quickly. LinkedIn is where he gets a lot of leads. Sending blog links to Google+ is helping his web traffic immensely and allows longer conversations to happen. Facebook isn’t all that useful to him right now. It’s the place where people go when “they want to see what their friends are up to, but don’t want to talk to them.”

Last week, the strange character known as Magic Cyclops began his 15 minutes of fame thanks to a memorable appearance on American Idol (video), and even he is surprised by it. His social media following has grown, he’s getting more gigs, and he’s guesting on radio shows across the nation.

But success, even if it was brought about by bizarrely deconstructing the most popular TV show in America, comes with a price. Yesterday, some wacky morning show DJs in Iowa brandjacked the Cyclops, saying that his entire act was an event they helped him plan five years ago. Bizarre. Needless to say, Thee Magic Cyclops — who has been performing music and playing the US Air Guitar circuit for at least 10 years — was not pleased. We contacted this legend of absurdity by phone and have this exclusive interview:

MP3: My Interview with Magic Cyclops (Click to listen.)

(In the interview, Magic decries lying the way the DJs did because “trees never lie, they don’t have to,” referencing his song “Angela There.” You can play it — track #8 from the gadget below.)

We also ran a quick brand audit with the Spiral16 web and social media monitoring platform to see what people across the Internet thought about Magic Cyclops’ American Idol appearance.

Because we can do that. Here’s some choice cuts:

From the IMDb boards (titled Magic Cyclops is my new God!): the best thing I have seen on Idol or in comedy in years. This guy was brilliant and nothing like those ridiculous and sad gimmick auditions. I kept thinking he was going to reveal himself as Christopher Guest. He is an improv GENIUS. Anyone who didn’t see how brilliant this guy was is either a baby or too brain-washed by TV’s mediocre fare to comprehend him. So glad I got to see this, now I can stop watching.

@Ally_0924 tweeted to actor Hugh Laurie: @HughLaurieBlues I watched American Idol last week and am completely convinced that you are Magic Cyclops

This blog had the contestants separated into the “Good” and the “Bad,” with Magic Cyclops filed last under the “Bad.”

Yidio: Magic Cyclops is from Davenport, Iowa, and has a terrible fake British accent. But he talks about his impressive air guitar collection and wins me over. He charms me further by explaining the accent by saying he watched a lot of BBC programming when he was younger, and refers to Jimmy Buffet as James Buffet (pronounced buff-ay). And yet, for all that build-up, his performance is a little lacking in zip. And then he closes out by requesting the theme music from “The Incredible Hulk” as he walks away. You know what? He might deserve to go in the “Good” column.

From the SurvivorSucks American Idol message board:

1. I think I dated Magic Cyclops during my brief college stint…
2. Best actor plant evah. 11,000 air guitars. Incredible Hulk music. I lol’d a couple of times.
3. I <3 Magic Cyclops
4. Magic Cyclops is no actor plant. He’s a brilliant, subversive, musical comic. He used to perform in Denver all the time until he recently killed off the character and came back briefly as a cyborg called Magic Roboclops. He also does a lot of the national air guitar championship competitions.

The Rochester City newspaper takes their Idol seriously: I’m not going to discuss Magic Cyclops, because that’s precisely what he wants me to do. Total waste of time, and this show should be embarrassed that it went along with his joke for as long as it did.

Access Atlanta: Magic Cyclops from Davenport, IA seems to be channeling his worst Russell Brand imitation. This is a horrific, time-sucking act. He gave judges a choice of Neil Diamond or Jimmy Buffett. Randy chooses “Cracklin’ Rose,” then “Margaritaville.” It’s absurd. He is a plant who isn’t even in the age limit. (This is no Larry “Pants on the Ground” Platt!) Randy walks out. Good move.

Magic is a divisive figure. Sentiment about Magic Cyclops' American Idol appearance since last week on the Internet is 51% negative and 49% positive.

My94.7fm: This audition was so random, that in my opinion was staged by Idol producers. The judges play right along like its a legitimate audition. The contestant comes in with dark glasses, wearing a bandana with “Magic” across his forehead dressed in a patriotic shirt. He introduces himself as Magic Cyclops and claims he’s running from gambling debts from Davenport, Iowa.

From the Rotten Tomatoes message board:

1. MAGIC CYCLOPS FOR PRESIDENT!!!!
2. Magic Cyclops is the best ever. Incredible wit – so quick.
3. He talks with a British accent because all they could get in his boyhood home was PBS.
4. I loved that. In fact I loved everything about him. Maybe he is a reincarnated drummer from Spinal Tap.
5. - Let’s see your eyes. – I don’t have any eyes. Haha. Best thing from American Idol in ages.

Like many of the commenters online, the conversation quickly turns to Magic’s already existing online assets, like his Facebook, MySpace, Bandcamp, and YouTube pages. Having web and social media monitoring available after a huge media appearance like his is essential in capitalizing on a new fanbase.

It’s also essential to have a social media monitoring system in place to capture the conversation, identify new fans and online influencers, as well as take the temperature of online sentiment. The online sentiment concerning Magic was decidedly split, with 51% negative slightly outweighing the 49% positive. All of this plays into creating an online strategy going forward, whether you are a personality, brand, agency, product, or service.

Thanks to Magic Cyclops for the interview and the music!

Last week on American Idol, a man with long hair, black sunglasses, and a bandana sporting the word “Magic” played air guitar and sang two songs for Jennifer Lopez, Steven Tyler, and Randy Jackson at the Aspen auditions for the show. After much amusement, the judges walked out on Magic Cyclops, who responded by shooting confetti from a cannon strapped to his ass.

The next day on the Internet, a star was born. So to speak. Unlike William Hung, Magic Cyclops (real name Scott Fuller) wasn’t actually deluded enough to think that he’d have a chance at the show. He just wanted to make an impression. (He claims to be from Davenport, Iowa, but speaks with a British accent, after all.) The Magic Cyclops persona is one that has been carefully honed working in and around Colorado as a DJ, musical act, and during years of competition on the US Air Guitar circuit.

So why are two morning show DJs in the Quad Cities of Iowa trying to take credit for Magic Cyclops?

Have the DJs co-opted the Magic Cyclops brand and made him out to be a morning-radio show prank? They sure have. On Thursday morning they posted the following status to their All Hits B100 Facebook page:

“Americas been punked…by us…we finally got our friend Scott Fuller aka “Magic Cyclops” to give D-port a shout last night on American Idol…nice work!!!!! we owe you!”

Magic Cyclops has all kinds of merchandise. Witness the Magic Cyclops Paper Doll.

At the end of the Total Tech article, which praises the station for using social media to capitalize on the publicity, author Jason Howell says, “Kudos to Brian and Tony, I don’t know if it was simply for the fun of it or for the publicity…or even a combination. Either way, good job guys.”

Then the story gets picked up by The Quad City Times:

“The radio hosts and the comic had stayed in touch through the years, and when they heard he was going to be on “Idol,” Scott said, “We just bet him, ‘Say our name, we’ve got half a grand for you if it’s on network TV.’”

Fuller’s response on his personal Facebook page: “zero percent of this is true” and “i never heard of these guys.” On the Magic Cyclops Facebook fan page: “Tell these D’bags to stop taking credit for my A.I. appearance. I don’t know these jerks at all…” The Cyclops is now threatening legal action against the station.

Cyclops supporters tried posting on the station’s pages, but the comments from angry fans were deleted. Then, this morning, all mentions of either article disappeared from the morning show Facebook page and Facebook group. What’s weird is that the group still has the Magic Cyclops-Idol t-shirt design as their image!

The strategy from B-100 now seems to be “delete and run.” It’s one of backpedaling to pretend like they never took credit for him in the first place. This is a horrible social media strategy. It’s always best to own up to a mistake, issue an apology, and move on. The web is littered with stories of social media Facebook PR nightmares. I’m sure that in the short-term (because radio and social media can help spread false info fast), this helped the station get some publicity and more notoriety as being crazy morning-show dudes. But was it worth it?

At least they responded to me. I emailed the show about the controversy and got this response, signed by no one in particular:

Scott is great, this is great marketing for him, (and all about staying in character), as for him “not knowing us”, keeps his 15 minutes hot and will ultimately continue to make him (and his persona) even bigger, thats the goal! We, love the attention Davenport, has gotten too, despite some heat we’ve taken for loving the Davenport props from a few citizens that are pretty irate that “Magic Cyclops” is showin the love! Lets keep Magic alive!!

The wording the station now uses is very careful, even though they are still talking about Magic Cyclops. This is from the front page of the B-100 website:

Obviously B-100 is still happy to associate its morning show with Magic Cyclops for as long as people are still talking about him.

The generation now known pretty much everywhere as millennials are tech-savvy, educated people who are driving the social media shift in markets and politics all over the globe.

Studies show that millennials are more aware of brands using social media, but they are also suspicious of brands who use social media, so reaching them can be a tricky proposition.

Last year, Spiral16 attended ShareLikeBuy in San Francisco and contributed a case study about Livestrong called Reaching Millennials By Building Engaged Communities. We’re also looking forward to this year’s ShareLikeBuy in October in New York.

Recently, Online Graduate Programs created this infographic about millennials — a hugely important demographic for digital marketers to reach — from studies by Pew Research. Check it out:

What does the volume of relevant web posts about each GOP candidate tell us about their electability?

After Newt Gingrich‘s big win in South Carolina this past weekend, we compared online sentiment between he and former (maybe current) frontrunner Mitt Romney using the Spiral16 Internet monitoring platform. Electability is a major issue for Gingrich supporters in that state, and both national polls and online sentiment prove that Gingrich still might have a problem in that area.

We’ve been running a case study on the race for the Republican presidential nomination since the beginning of the new year. The platform has collected online blog posts, news stories, social media results, forum discussions, and all other publicly available digital content in a sampling of two different categories for each candidate:

1. Raw mentions of the candidate

2. Specific mentions of the candidate in terms of the election itself

Comparing the volume of mentions against each other produced some pretty interesting results. It could be interpreted that the amount of posts generated in the red bars are a reflection of how electable the candidate is because each of these posts are only collected if they also contain language about the primaries or caucuses. The results in the red are more qualified in a general sense because of the language surrounding them.

Mitt Romney has a sizable lead in terms of raw online mentions and primary-related discussion. Does this speak to his electability?

Mitt Romney wins the battle in both measurements. Romney still has a higher raw count than any other candidate (9,000 more than Ron Paul) and how often he is mentioned in terms of the primaries (12,000 more than Newt Gingrich).

Ron Paul, whom people refer to as a fringe politician, has a large raw mention count due to his loyal Internet following, but the fact that he isn’t mentioned as much in terms of the election specifically points to his lack of coverage in mainstream outlets. He has almost 66,000 more raw mentions.

Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, has less of a chasm between his raw number of mentions and his qualified election mentions: a difference of around 44,000. Unfortunately, he is over 25,000 mentions behind Romney in raw count and 12,000 behind in the election-language volume count.

Rick Santorum, whose own buzz we analyzed after his Iowa win, doesn’t have a lot of good news in this study either. Rick Perry still has 6,000 more mentions in tandem with the primaries than he does, despite the fact that he dropped out before South Carolina. Santorum also has over 6,000 less raw results than Herman Cain.

Of the candidates no longer in the race, its worth noting that Herman Cain has over 71,000 raw mentions, but that is mostly due to the Stephen “Colbert bump” he received last week. Even with all the buzz surrounding Colbert, Cain still has has the lowest total primary mentions.

For those of you not interested in political data in the least, keep this in mind: There are so many different takeaways you can get from a robust set of online monitoring. Imagine what you could do with data about all the different things people are saying about your brand on the web, where they’re saying it, and what the sentiment for your business looks like. A clear picture of your brand ecosystem on the Internet allows you to benchmark, strategize, roll out an informed marketing plan, and change it on the fly.

When it comes to business intelligence, that’s pretty valuable.

Just last week, Ekaterina Walter, a social media strategist at Intel, wrote a post about the two-way nature of social media that, in light of the #McDStories Twitter hashtag-gone-wrong, seems to be downright prescient:

With the growth of social media and all the two-way channels of communication open to organizations, brand identity is potentially stronger but more at-risk than ever. Losing control of your brand’s ‘voice’ can be hugely damaging.

Exhibit A

And Frank Eliason, SVP of Social for Citi, wrote this just about one month ago:

The first thing to recognize is that the brand image is owned by others and not the PR department or marketing. Both of these departments are important but they are no longer in the driver’s seat for brand image. I wonder if they ever were? Again, probably a post for another day. I am not sure things have changed in this regard but perception has. The masses, whomever they may be, control it.

Exhibit B

But neither the timely nature of these posts, nor the lemming-like reposting of the Twitterati have acknowledged what, to me, is obvious about this PR “crisis”; the whole thing is absolutely hilarious!

Exhibit C

Yes, I’m talking to you, Mr/Mrs “McDonald’s Twitter Hashtag Promotion, Goes Horribly Wrong” re-tweeter. Do you really think it’s news that McDonalds isn’t actually good for you? Do you really think the McDonald’s execs are in Def-Con 1 now that the “quality” [cough] of their menu has been publicly called into question? Do you really think a hashtag-hijack qualifies as a “gone horribly wrong” type of incident?

Here’s some perspective: San Ysidro is “gone horribly wrong.”

“The McRib contains the same chemical used to make yoga mats” is just funny.

Exhibit D

So lighten up, Twitterverse, and enjoy the humor. I know it’s shocking, but not everybody is on Twitter, and not everybody that is on Twitter knows about #McDStories, and not everybody that knows, cares.

Based on the number of cars in line with me at McDonald’s drive-thru this morning I’m guessing my fellow patrons either (a) didn’t get the #McMemo, or (b) just don’t care.

So it goes.

How do national polls and exit polling compare to what is being said on the Internet about the Republican presidential frontrunners?

This weekend, Newt Gingrich landed a decisive victory in the South Carolina primary, giving the GOP presidential candidate 40.4% of the vote, with Mitt Romney a distant second at 27.8%. But he’s still got more work to do if he wants to overcome doubts about his electability.

Why did Newt Gingrich win in South Carolina? Perhaps the state responded to Gingrich’s aggressiveness in the debates. Or maybe it was South Carolina sending a message to the rest of the nation that this race is far from over.

According to the exit poll, 45% of South Carolina voters said the most important quality in a candidate was that he could beat President Obama in November. This was the number-one concern. 51% of voters who were concerned about electability voted for Newt Gingrich, while only 37% of those voters went for Romney.

Mitt Romney has a 4% larger share of positive sentiment in relevant online posts (a total of 24%) than Newt Gingrich.

But South Carolina isn’t in line with the rest of the country. An average of recent national polls shows that Mitt Romney is still more electable than Newt Gingrich. If the presidential election were held today, Obama would beat Mitt Romney by a narrow margin of 1.9%, while Obama would clobber Gingrich by a whopping 11%.

NewsOK agrees:

Recent national polls by Fox News and PPP show that Barack Obama’s average fav/unfavs are 49%-48%, Mitt Romney’s are 40%-45%, and Newt Gingrich’s are 26%-58% — lukewarm numbers for Obama and Romney, dreadful numbers for Gingrich.

But what does the Internet say?

According to data collected through the Spiral16 online monitoring platform, Newt Gingrich still has a bit of an uphill battle, though the margin of difference between he and Mitt Romney is significantly smaller.

Newt Gingrich has 3% more negative sentiment than Mitt Romney, for a total of 18% across the web.

Looking at all relevant web data across news sites, blogs, video sites, and social media since the beginning of 2012, Romney edges out Gingrich with 4% more average positive sentiment than the former Speaker of the House. Gingrich also has 3% more total negative sentiment on the web than Romney.

Romney’s sentiment rating is 24% positive and 15% negative, while Gingrich has 20% positive and 18% negative across unique web pages pertaining to each.

Average sentiment is calculated by the platform after looking for overtly positive or negative words that appear in the post. If sentiment is not determined to be overt in one direction or the other, it is classified as neutral.

Since many results come in from news websites, and not every web posting contains positively or negatively skewing sentiment, it is not common for a large percentage of the whole to be classified as neutral. Romney has a total of 61% neutral posts, while Gingrich has 62%.

As business communications people, we all face the challenge of getting across the core value of what we do in the simplest, most effective terms possible.

In digital and social media especially, the challenge of effective communication comes down to two things:

1. Web audiences have short attention spans and you must speak to them efficiently.

2. How do you best measure the success of your communications?

This morning at the KCIABC breakfast Taking Your Communications Practice From Good to Excellent, moderated by Anne Canfield (VP of communications at the Kansas City Art Institute), the panelists had some great advice on these subjects and more.

Eric Morgenstern, CEO of Morningstar Communications started by framing the entire discussion of effective communication. I took copious notes, so I am paraphrasing for this whole post, but here some big-picture takeaways from Eric that are especially useful as we all plan out communications strategy for the new year.

Communicating effectively in business comes down to three things:

Is your message getting across to your potential customers?

Positioning: What do you stand for?

Message: The content you develop to get those messages across

• This content can be divided up simply as: What? (what you do) So What? (why should I care?) Now What? (make sure your message drives change)

Delivery: How you tell your story

• This comes down to four basic delivery methods that should be consistently firing on all cylinders: Paid media, earned media, shared media, and controlled media

Eric’s big philosophy is this: “Think Excellence, Not Different.” Many companies will fall into the trap of spending all their time on the differentiators between them and the competition. Instead, focus on your company’s excellence — why your company is the best choice. What I took away from that is that if the differentiators are part of that equation, that’s great, but let them be just that: one portion of why your company or product owns a position of excellence.

Measuring the success of business communications/social media and web campaigns is the next obvious step, whether this is your own messaging or work you are doing for your client. Jeff Xouris, VP of marketing for Popstar Networks, talked about the importance of setting targets and building bridges towards setting revenue goals for your communications. Or, as he called it:

Make sure your outputs are resulting in the desired outcomes.

“How to Make Sure What You Do Matters”

This is something we’re constantly reinforcing to our clients and prospects here at Spiral16. Jeff says you have to make sure that your messaging drives and supports the company’s business objectives. The second half of that is making sure the metrics you are measuring are aligned with those goals so you can measure success. Sounds simple, right? It’s not. It’s the single biggest challenge that companies have when they come to us, which is why we are adding a whole new services/reports element to our offering to tell businesses what all this web data we gather means.

Here’s the key: In order to measure how your communication efforts are impacting the top line, you have to create clear business goals. Do you want to reduce expenses? Increase revenue? Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty?

Eric expanded further on that: Too often, communication measurement is based on output and not outcomes. Goals like increased web views, putting out 12 newsletters a year, and blogging two times a week are ouputs. They may get you to where you want to be, but the C-level doesn’t care about that, they care about outcomes like conversion, changing behavior, and driving sales.

Don't let the client set you up for failure. Tell them why you are measuring business outcomes and steer them away from a checklist of outputs.

Julie Bartels Smith, president of JBSmith Communications, added to the conversation by talking about this conundrum: Sometimes the client will specifically request a list of outputs from you and let that be the end of it. Your performance is then being judged not by the outcomes that you know drive success, but by a client-mandated checklist that they think will drive success, setting you up for failure. They are afraid sometimes of setting goals and failing.

She suggested creating your own measurements and reinforcing those measurements throughout the year. That way, the client cannot judge success at the end of the year by some arbitrary set of outputs. If they demand a fixed set of outputs, you should provide them, but also include the measurements that you judge success by.

Julie says even if they don’t request it, “I’ll include strategy in my report because it’s what I do.” Eric added to that: “Give them what they want and what they need.”

There was so much solid information in today’s presentation. Thanks to all the panelists and KCIABC for setting this up and making it so accessible to both members and non-members this morning. I love getting inspired early in the morning before my brain is fried from all the things I have to get done during the day.

Now the challenge is to unbury myself (is “unbury” a word?) from all the outputs I need to create long enough to re-evaluate the bigger picture of my own business communications!

Images: Skillspace, MATC, Corporate Executive Board

Cool Travel Industry Social Media Infographic

The travel industry has been closely linked with social media ever since smart phones have given everybody and their mother an outlet to complain about their flight. (Just ask American Airlines and Alec Baldwin.)

Two of the biggest questions for companies in the travel industry are:

1. How are travelers driving the industry’s ever-evolving business goals?

2. Are companies are able to calculate social media ROI?

Simpliflying, in partnership with Eyefortravel, created this infographic with those questions in mind. It seems like the adoption rate for social media is unusually high in the travel industry. One statistic shows that over 70% of travel marketers are using social media to “build their brands. In addition, 45% of travel marketers are confident of having unlocked useful data to measure ROI on their social media strategies.

This number is even higher for mobile, and almost half of all the airlines surveyed said they plan to increase their presence in location-based social networks in 2012. Check out this cool infographic about social media in the travel industry:

Via SimpliFlying