IMS New York By the Numbers

March 8, 2012 by

If we learned anything from last week’s Inbound Marketing Summit New York, it’s that we are fascinated by numbers.  As marketers and content creators, numbers are always on our mind, from the actionable data that drive our strategies to the social media scores that define our online presences. At this year’s IMS, even an armchair numerologist could attach a lot of numerical significance to the event, from the curious timing of the event (February 29) to the venue name (404), to the data-driven marketing ideas that permeated every session and conversation.  There is no doubt: In the year 2012, data is on every marketer’s mind.

From the event’s onset, The Pulse Network set to create a rich body of data from the tweets and social conversations surrounding the event. One week later, I’ve taken a look back at the numbers that define the Inbound Marketing Summit experience and have put together something that I like to call the…

IMS Social Chatter Index

•       Total number of tweets using  the hash tag #ims12 during the two-day event: 1339

•       Average Tweets per hour: 28

•       Hour with the most #ims12 tweets: 9:00am – 10:00am, Wednesday, February 29 (142 tweets)

•       Total number of tweets using the hash tag #ims12 during the entire week: 1614

•       Average Twitter followers per #ims12 hash tag user: 3231

•       Average Klout Score of #ims12 hash tag user: 37.5

Most talked about presentations:

•      Tim Hayden, 121 tweets (featuring hash tag #ims12) during his 40 minute presentation

•       Chris Brogan, 106 tweets during his 30 minute presentation

•       Trip Kucera, 77 Tweets during his 30 minute presentation

You can learn a lot of interesting things by looking at the numbers and this is only the tip of the ice berg.  And yet, by any measurement, The Pulse Network’s debut Inbound Marketing Summit in New York was a smash.

 

Filed Under: The Pulse on Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

B2B Social Media Myths Busted: Businesses Are Too Traditional

November 28, 2011 by

Actually, Social Media is Indispensable for Businesses

If someone would have told me two years ago that businesses are too conservative for social media, I would have agreed. However, since that time we have learned a lot more when it comes to the staying power of this “fad“; today social media is something that no business can afford to avoid.  Instead of seeing the features that social media provides as a threat to traditional ways of doing business; try embracing social media campaigns and promotions. You don’t need to be a social media expert, but it is essential that you utilize social media to move forward as a business.

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I quote from an article from by eWEEK.com about the Web2.0, which you can check out here.

Check out Part Three on moving your relationships online to offline. Didn’t catch the other parts of the series?  Check them out right here: Part One.

Think I missed something on the post?  What some more advice on using the busted myths in business? Let me know by commenting on this post, or by reaching out to me on e-mail: ssaber@thepulsenetwork.com

This is Part Two of a Five Part Series with Tyler Pyburn, Host at The Pulse Network, and Stephen Saber, Chief Executive Officer at The Pulse Network, in which they aim to make plain some of the biggest business to business social media myths.
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How Do You Become a Thought Leader?

November 18, 2011 by

Why Thought Leadership is Just as Important as Executive Leadership

Leadership isn’t limited to people in a position of power.   While Presidents, high-profile sports coaches and CEOs are all in a prime position to take the bull by the horns and lead, the everyday Joe can be a leader as well.

The world of social media allows each and every person with an Internet connection to become a thought leader.  Dorie Clark writes a primer on becoming a thought leader in the Harvard Business Review. The reality is that being direct and decisive are an integral part of being seen as one.  However, the fact remains that you’ll need to prove results by driving performance in one way or another if you want to remain viable long-term as a thought leader .

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Want more?  Check out Part Four of this Five Part Series on great leadership and business innovation. To watch the rest of the series, check out Part One, Part Two, and Part Five.  You can reach Butch Stearns on Twitter @ButchStearns, and you can reach Tyler Pyburn on Twitter @TyPyburn

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How to Communication Your Strategy More Effectively: Feeling The Message

October 12, 2011 by

 

This is Part Three of a Five Part Series with Tyler Pyburn, Host at The Pulse Network, and Stephen Saber, Chief Executive Officer at The Pulse Network, on how to communicate your strategy more effectively.
 

Feeling the Message

Though the phrase “feel the message” definitely conjures up some pretty ridiculous ideas, I am not talking here about mediating with incense for four hours a day.  Letting the message come out in your own voice is how you can feel the message.  Any great orator has that ability to persuade with a message that fees as if it is connected directly from his brain to his mouth.  If the message doesn’t become part of your heart and isn’t something you believe in, how can it persuade your employees?.

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In part four of this series, I diagram why the vehicle is so crucial for the message.

Didn’t get a chance to check out the rest of the series, check them out here: Part One, Part Two.

Think I missed something on the post?  What some more advice on how to innovate? Let me know by commenting on this post, or by reaching out to me on e-mail: ssaber@thepulsenetwork.com

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How to Communication Your Strategy More Effectively: Building a Framework

October 11, 2011 by

 

This is Part Two of a Five Part Series with Tyler Pyburn, Host at The Pulse Network, and Stephen Saber, Chief Executive Officer at The Pulse Network, on how to communicate your strategy more effectively.
 

How to Build a Framework for Your Message

The goal of communicating your strategy is to make your message easier understood and echoed.  Since the only way to achieve that is by keeping the message consistent every time you state it, you must build a framework to your message.  This article gave the suggestion to set up a framework that inspires, educates, and reinforces your message.  For this part of the series I explained why each layer of the framework is critical to your communication strategy and how to perform said task.

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In part three of this series I will go about helping to make the message apart of what you are.

Didn’t get a chance to check out the rest of the series, check them out here: Part One.

Think I missed something on the post?  What some more advice on how to innovate? Let me know by commenting on this post, or by reaching out to me on e-mail: ssaber@thepulsenetwork.com

Filed Under: CEO Corner Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Social Media Contests – Quizzes & Polls

September 12, 2011 by

This is part four of a five part series between Tyler Pyburn, host at The Pulse Network, and Allen Bonde, Chief Marketing Officer at The Pulse Network, as they break down social media contest models and how they compare.

In the first three parts of our discussion, we’ve looked at the various types of social media contests and promotions, running sweepstakes and most recently social deals.  This time we’ll look at Quizzes and Polls, one of the easiest – and most effective ways – to drive engagement on your Twitter feed or Facebook page.

 

Types of Social Media Contests

 

Quizzes and polls are an easy way to get people to participate with your organization via Facebook and Twitter.  For example, we post simple polls on our various ‘PulseOn’ community pages that pertain to topics or content featured in recent shows.  Polls can also be a great way to gage the temperature of your fan base, where participation (and seeing what others think) is basically the prize.

Quizzes and Polls on Facebook

When I looked at the use of polls and quizzes on Facebook earlier this year for an article I did for Social Times, I found that half of the top 25 brands on Facebook have some sort of poll or two-way contest on their Facebook page.  Smart brands use polls or quizzes as a simple way to engage – and also start going down the path to qualifying prospects and even spotlighting related products on the way to social commerce.

Fan feedback can also be valuable to brands, especially for product planning in advance of rolling out a new product line, for example.  Feedback from social channels is not only authentic, but potentially in context, if it is captured directly in the stream of conversations that are going on within a community.  It’s also easy to embed polls right on your Facebook wall so visitors can vote on and add either a Like or a comment directly beneath it.

On Twitter, the model is more oriented to quizzes.  For example, you can send out a tweet saying that the first (or tenth or 100th) follower to tweet out the right answer to a linked quiz wins a prize.

Learn more about all of these models by watching the segment below.  And next time we’ll look at one of the most popular contest models on Facebook – the Photo Contest.

 

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Allen Bonde is the CMO of The Pulse Network and can be found on Twitter or email,abonde@thepulsenetwork.com.

Tyler Pyburn is a host at The Pulse Network and can be reached on his twitter or e-mail, tpyburn@thepulsenetwork.com

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Social Media Contests – 4 Popular Models

August 23, 2011 by

This is part one of a five part series between Tyler Pyburn, host at The Pulse Network, and Allen Bonde, Chief Marketing Officer at The Pulse Network, as they discuss social media contests and how they’re effective as a marketing tool.

One of the most effective ways to engage with fans and followers on social media channels is with interactive contests, games and promotions.  In fact I saw this potential first hand as a co-founder of fan marketing platform Offerpop.  In this series we’ll take a look at 4 of the most popular contest models, and how they can be deployed on both Twitter and Facebook to not only create engagement, but also generate word of mouth so you can reach new audiences.  Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the most popular models:

Types of Social Media Contests

Depending on your business goals (attract fans vs. provide fan benefits), different models may make sense.   For example, sweepstakes are great for building awareness and growing followers, while quizzes and polls provide a simple way to entertain and engage with an existing audience.

Also, while Twitter is more of an open environment with less restrictions when it comes to running contests, Facebook has set rules that brands must follow (there’s actually a set of promotions guidelines that Facebook has published and periodically updates).  One of these rules is that you need to build and manage your promotion using a third party tool or promotion builder, likeOfferpop, Wildfire, or Buddy Media.  Check out our discussion to learn more – and in the next segments we’ll dig into each of the specific contest models and explore some successful campaigns and approaches.

 

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Allen Bonde is the CMO of The Pulse Network and can be found on Twitter or email,abonde@thepulsenetwork.com.

Tyler Pyburn is a host at The Pulse Network and can be reached on his twitter or e-mail, tpyburn@thepulsenetwork.com


Filed Under: The Pulse on Marketing, The Pulse on Tech Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Pulse Network Solutions – Twitter Promotions

August 15, 2011 by

This is part four of a five part series between Butch Stearns, host at The Pulse Network, and Allen Bonde, Chief Marketing Officer at The Pulse Network, as they explore the lifecycle of digital marketing and the new solutions offered by The Pulse Network.

 

In this episode Butch and I look at Twitter and how this social channel has emerged as a key communication tool, listening platform and even an efficient ‘list builder’ for digital marketing campaigns.

From a marketers’ standpoint, Twitter is deceptively simple. Find some folks to follow, reply to a few tweets, push out updates, and repeat. Yet, when you think of Twitter as a campaign platform with some similarities to both Facebook, in terms of running promotions, and email marketing – but with a self-building list – its potential gets pretty interesting.

And if you are focused on reaching influencers as part of a B2B marketing campaign, Twitter become even more attractive.  Especially when you consider that the profile of many early (and heavy) Twitter users is concentrated around analysts, marketers, media types, and technology buyers.

Functionally, Twitter also plays a distinct role vs. Facebook and LinkedIn.  If Facebook and LinkedIn are all about a ‘place’ (for your content and discussions), Twitter is more of a ‘time’ – where you interact, and sample what’s hot, and link your friends to what’s interesting.  But in many cases that content lives elsewhere – like on your blog or Facebook page.

Successful social marketing is about programming, and aligning with the language and social gestures of each channel. At a high level, there are three steps we follow at TPN when building your presence on Twitter and launching a campaign: an assessment of your goals, content mix and audience; development of a campaign calendar; and promotion building – think contests and fun ideas that promote engagement within your community (using a tool like Offerpop). For example, we promote our Inbound Marketing Summit event through different social media by creating promotions on both our Facebook and Twitter page, and amplifing these programs via special hashtags and our website and email newsletters.   Remember – even while you focus on one channel like Twitter, it’s all about engaging everywhere!

 

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I’d love to hear what you think.  How are you using Twitter as part of your marketing mix?  And in case you missed Part 3, I explained how our Executive Briefing 3.0 helps to break the bottleneck in getting executives to blog and post on social channels like Twitter.

 

Allen Bonde is the CMO of The Pulse Network and can be found on Twitter or email, abonde@thepulsenetwork.com.

Butch Stearns is the COO of The Pulse Network and can be found on his Blog, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

 

Filed Under: The Pulse on Marketing, The Pulse on Tech Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Pulse Network Solutions – Executive Brief 3.0

August 12, 2011 by

This is part three of a five part series between Butch Stearns, host at The Pulse Network, and Allen Bonde, Chief Marketing Officer at The Pulse Network, as they explore the lifecycle of digital marketing and the new solutions offered by The Pulse Network.


At the Pulse Network we’ve developed a solution that is designed to capture, produce, and deliver a months worth of proactive, C-Level content with just one hour of your executive’s time.  As someone who struggles to find time to do all my writing, it’s a pretty cool idea.  And it’s the idea behind our new Executive Brief 3.0.

It seems like just yesterday that marketers were struggling to convince our CEOs that we needed to expose our business to social media.  Now that everyone understands the concept of social media, and knows it’s essential to be engaging on social channels to reach customers where they congregate, we face a different challenge: getting these same executives to make the time to blog, and tweet and create posts so they can stay in touch and (especially in B2B) reach influencers.  The irony of course is that the people who are most equipped to tell the company’s story, and represent the brand on social channels, have the least amount of time to do so!  This is where Executive 3.0 steps in and provides a practical solution.

As I’ve  discussed, effective social marketing starts with a good story.  And blogging is a core way that executives can tell stories, start discussions and articulate a point of view.  Your corporate blog is the voice of the company, and needs to be authentic, informed and informative!  Yet, it takes a good half a day to write a good post, when you include the time to read, research, get links, and distribute it.  Multiply this by 4 or 5 – since it’s good practice to have each contributor doing at least one new post per week, and we are talking 2+ days a month just for blogging!

Executive Brief 3.0 breaks this bottleneck by building an outline/rundown for a blog ‘series,’ capturing the executive’s perspectives, thoughts and examples in one 30-minute video interview, creating 5 segments of content, post producing the output, and creating video blog posts, vignettes, transcripts, and even sound bites that can be easily cleaned up by your PR or marketing folks and turned into a month’s worth of social content.  What’s it look like?  This is how I created this post!

 

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Using TPN’s video engine and production capabilities, our social media know-how, and managing the process end-to-end makes it all work.  It’s a great way to tap your best storytellers, and create valuable, repurpose-able content assets.

Also, in case you missed Part 2 of this segment, I talked about virtual event marketing and how our Webinar 3.0 can benefit your business as well. Thanks for reading!

Allen Bonde is the CMO of The Pulse Network and can be found on Twitter or email,abonde@thepulsenetwork.com.

Butch Stearns is the COO of The Pulse Network and can be found on his Blog, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Filed Under: CEO Corner, The Pulse on Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Creating Good Content, Have Some Fun

August 4, 2011 by

This is part four of a five part series between Tyler Pyburn, host at The Pulse Network, and Butch Stearns, Chief Operating Officer at The Pulse Network, as they hash out what goes into creating good content.

 

In order to bridge the communication gap between you and your audience, it’s important to be a great conversationalist.

People who understand and grasp the concept of conversational communication have developed an audience that may not like them, but need to hear what you have to say next. One key component of communication that many people forget when trying to win approval of an audiences attention is laughter. Making a person laugh goes longer than you think. When creating conversational content, the easiest way to learn is through examples. I like to use Chris Brogan as a key example. Chris created a video of his son talking about a book he recently wrote. If you watch the video, all you can do is laugh! It turned out that because the video was so addictingly funny, it landed an endorsement with a book company. Whether it’s video, audio or even written text, if you make people laugh people are going to pick it up and share it to the world (“going viral”). Laughter gives people the ability to not only stay conversational, but it also creates great quality content that people will want to watch.

 

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In case you missed Part 3 of this series, I explained how communicating in a conversational manner went a long way in creating good content.

In Part 5 of this series I’ll be summarizing the concept of “creating good content” by giving viewers an outline of everything I discussed in the entire series.

 

Butch Stearns is the COO of The Pulse Network and can be found on his Blog, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Tyler Pyburn is a host at The Pulse Network and can be reached on his twitter or e-mail, tpyburn@thepulsenetwork.com

 

 

 

 

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