Gretchen Gary's Blog

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. My first semester of the International MBA program is almost over – only two weeks left before finals.

In a serious effort to focus on something other than finance or accounting, I broke out a couple hours this morning to try and get something going for my blog… which has been sadly neglected since this program began last summer.

To be honest, almost everything in my life has been neglected since this program began – friends, family, networking (or socializing with anyone other than the students in my cohort for that matter), leisure, meditation, and even my workout routine. All I do these days is study, write, calculate, review, research and sit in front of my computer. My life isn’t exactly sexy, but I’m learning a ton and am happy to say that I finally understand my Merrill Lynch financial statements.

Everyone keeps telling me this is the hardest part, that it’s all downhill from here. I take comfort in that and I hope I can find a better balance next semester. But considering that the internship search is heating up and I’m open to start working in the spring, I doubt that the pace will settle down at all. This is the new normal for me. I just have to find a way to fit in a little leisure and yoga somehow.

I may not be too good at the school/life balance but I do have to say that all the hard work is paying off. Turns out, I really enjoy finance and I’m pretty good at accounting. I use Excel more than Word now (as a writer, I never thought that would happen), and I know how to run a breakeven analysis. In my past life, the only metric I focused on was ROI. Funny to realize now that I never gave BEP much thought at all. That was something I always left to the Ops and Accounting department. That was their job, not mine. Not anymore.

In light of everything I’ve learned so far, I have a new passion for my career. I’m excited about where it might go and how it might evolve. All this new potential in such a short period of time is mind boggling. I always figured I was a creative type, and that was that. But now I know I can be a math mind too. I’ve crossed the divide.

I’m excited to see what kind of opportunities await at the end of the MBA pipeline. For now though, it’s about surviving the final stretch and coming out on top at the other end.

Wish me luck!

Apparently, business is a bit obsessed with acronyms. And as I reflect on the first quarter of my MBA, I notice a distinct change in the way I think, but strangely enough, it’s still in terms of acronyms.

Pre-MBA, my world was consumed with customer relationship management (CRM), search engine optimization (SEO), click through rates (CTR) and social media marketing (SMM). I focused exclusively on marketing as I helped clients drive more traffic to their websites, improve search rankings, and boost customer conversions. It was all about the details.

Now, it’s all about the big picture as I expand my acronym lexicon to include terms like the consumer price index (CPI), return-on-equity (ROE), earnings per share (EPS) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). From monetary policy to financial statement analysis, the MBA curriculum hits hard on overall performance, of both the corporation and the economy. It’s the long view, rather than the short view. Sustainable growth rather than immediate results.

Most of us get caught up in the immediate results. I know I did. Seeing website traffic jump because of a successful viral campaign or effective SEO offers instant gratification. I could assess success in terms of unique hits, page views, shares and likes. Or measure results through source-code orders, email response rates, or upselling in the shopping cart.

But as I’ve learned, the question to ask isn’t “how much did we make?” but more along the lines of “is it sustainable?”

Success today does not ensure success tomorrow so you need to be ahead of the curve to know when those efforts should adapt to meet new demand. Industries change and companies go under. But those that stick around and continue to thrive are those that understand the big picture.

For now, my own success lies in blending big picture concepts with my specialized expertise. My personal brand is evolving. Beyond the acronym, I’m excited to see what else this MBA will bring to my CV.

Social media benefits companies in various ways. Beyond the obvious advantages of brand awareness and exposure, social media has the potential to promote a heightened level of customer satisfaction through purchase reassurance.

Purchase reassurance involves reinforcing the perceived value of a product or service to boost customer loyalty. Consumers love to be reassured that they have made the right purchase decision, whether on price or brand selection. And once they have that reassurance, they often share their experience through word-of-mouth referrals.

Social Media and the Power of Word of Mouth

Social media expands the reach of average consumers so word-of-mouth referrals are no longer confined to immediate circles of friends and families. Now, people can share impressions and reviews with vast communities of likeminded peers.

Happy customers are always advocates of brands they love. And with the rise of modern media, free social networking tools such as blogs, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have empowered average consumers with a highly visible platform where they can express opinions, complaints and most importantly, endorsements. Never before have consumers had the ability to influence so many of their peers. All they need is a little product reassurance.

Content Marketing

With the rise of social media, content marketing has become a field unto itself. In addition to corporate profiles, pages and blogs, companies are now incorporating the use of video, widgets, interactive media, and other social objects into their campaigns.

Articles, videos and press releases are used to gain media coverage, increase page views, improve search rankings and generate buzz. By increasing exposure, companies are able to position themselves as an authority on their field, a leader in their industry, or the preferred choice to the competition. The more visible a company or product becomes, the more loyal its customers.

Social media for businesses is not about making friends or simply “joining the conversation”, it’s a highly profitable way to drive revenue, find new prospects and nurture existing customer relationships. As published by social media blog Mashable, a new study shows that consumers who are fans or followers of a brand on Facebook or Twitter “are significantly more likely to buy products and services or recommend the brand to a friend.”

Companies are not only improving customer conversions with effective social media campaigns, but are also growing communities of brand advocates – happy customers who are eager to rave about their experience and refer friends.

In the realm of social media, where friends and followers can number hundreds or thousands per profile, a little purchase reassurance goes a long way.

I am by no means an expert on Twitter. But I have figured out what works for me in growing a small following and getting mentions and retweets (without the use of bots or automation).

The key is to bring a unique voice and value to the cloud. Personality wins, especially when it comes with insight and opinions. And now more than ever, you need to work hard to get noticed.

(Infographic by Mashable)

If you are serious about tweeting to build a personal brand or promote your small business, you want to first consider your objectives. Why are you tweeting? Who is your audience? What is your message?

Know what to say – and what not to say. And watch your mentions. Be sure to respond to anyone who tweets with your user handle or mentions your name or company. Engagement is the purpose of social media. Otherwise, it’s just media.

I’m always surprised when I see colleagues and peers tweeting about mundane activities and nonsense. No one cares if you are heading to the gym or just had lunch with your mom. What value does that bring to the conversation? Especially in a forum like Twitter, where your most of your contacts are strangers. I’ve unfollowed many for tweeting too much about the irrelevant.

Social media blog Mashable reports that more than 40% of tweets are pointless babble. It’s like background noise. And even if you don’t lose followers, most will start to ignore your tweets if you fail to offer anything interesting or of value.

For best results, tweet news, tips, thoughts, ideas, jokes and some occasional quotes from thought leaders (though too many quotes may seem spammy, especially when you use the #quote tag). Retweet often and respond to other users. Conversation helps build relationships with your following.

When crafting your tweets, remember to use keywords. Twitter search is a powerful tool and more Internet browsers are using it to find real-time results. Keyword-rich tweets will help you gain new followers and hopefully, new clients or customers.

Twitter is my favorite social media channel. Never before have so many thought leaders and industry gurus volunteered their expertise and advice in such an open and free fashion.

My Twitter feed is a thought-provoking stream of ideas and information, tailored to my particular interests. I am inspired on a daily basis, and like to think that maybe I inspire others too.

LinkedIn has been around for seven years now. And according to a new report by NetProspex, it is the top social site in corporate America.

But what amazes me most about LinkedIn is that despite the buzz about it, it’s surprisingly hard to find contacts I know. I’d say only 25% of my personal and professional contacts from my past are using it, even though it is by far the most lucrative of all social networks.

I lived abroad for several years, primarily in Costa Rica where I worked for two large condo developers. And even though demographic reports show professionals in more than 200 countries are using LinkedIn, it still has not caught on in Costa Rica. Hardly anyone I know there is using it.

LinkedIn is like an exclusive business club. Those who realize its potential successfully use it for lead generation, marketing and sales, as well as social networking.

According to LinkedIn statistics, more than 50% of its 68,000,000 registered users have an annual household income of more than $100,000 and 23% have annual income of more than $150,000. I’m amazed that more people don’t realize the benefit of being part of this online community.

From professional recommendations and client testimonials to the ingenious questions & answers feature, LinkedIn offers a unique networking forum dedicated to professional interaction. Join groups, add your reading list, enforce your brand with thoughtful status updates and build relationships. People who use it effectively get results.

Hopefully soon, it will catch on in Costa Rica and I’ll see more of my contacts Linked In.

I think Brian Clark of Copyblogger sums it up best by saying “If your content isn’t good enough to attract good, natural links, it doesn’t matter how ‘optimized’ that content is.”

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an evolving science. What started out with the strategic placement of carefully selected keywords to boost your website’s placement in search results, has morphed into an art of producing fresh, relevant content that draws links.

As you can see on the chart above produced by Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz.org, on-page keyword usage is only a small piece of the Google site ranking pie while domain authority (defined by quality incoming links), specific page popularity (also defined by external links) and related anchor text account for more than 65%.

Content should not only appeal to your target audience and attract search spiders for related keywords, it should also inspire links from other credible websites, blogs and social networks.

What is link bait?

Content can be defined as copy, audio, video, downloads, widgets, images or other social objects available on a website. Link bait refers to content that is worth sharing.

Any content that especially insightful, funny, informative, interactive or valuable will draw interest and links from other websites. And amid the growing competition for attention on the Internet, the more links you get, the better.

While there has been some debate about the ethics of linkbaiting (due to bad practice by spammers), the bottom line is that everyone wants and needs links from other sites in order to rank well in search results. All major search engines determine a website’s value or rank based on the number of external websites that link back to your site. The logic behind this is that references from other sites (via links) enforce credibility of your content.

“It’s the online equivalent of word-of-mouth advertising,” as explained by the Microsoft Small Business Center.

Social Sharing

Beyond search engine results, link sharing on social networks presents new opportunities in the ever-changing landscape of content distribution. Social Media Optimization (SMO) has become increasingly important, which Brian Solis effectively explains with this very simple equation:

SEO + SMO = Amplified Findability in the traditional and social Web

Blog links, tweets, bookmarks, shares, votes and likes all fall under the “link” umbrella. It is now easier than ever for people to share information with their entire communities and social graphs. Does your content inspire them to do so?

What Makes For Good Content?

Good content always starts with your copy. To inspire readers to share and link to your blog or Web pages, you need original ideas, opinions and tips packaged with a talent for good writing. Translate features to benefits and keep your objective focused on motivating a favorable response.

Know your keywords and craft search-friendly copy that reads well and engages your readers. You want search engines to find you, but more importantly, you want browsers to enjoy and share your content.

Optimize without compromise to quality and be remarkable. Give people something to talk about …and something worth linking to.

Do you want to know how you rank on Twitter? I know I did.

I’ve been using Twitter for a little over 4 months now. I’m learning as I go, trying to figure out what kind of content people want and how to best grow my influence. I have to admit, I’m a bit obsessed with it.

Twitter enables a new way to share information. And never before have so many professionals eagerly shared their secrets. The information age has spawned a new era where seasoned experts gladly give away advice and tips in exchange for clicks, Diggs and page views. It’s amazing. If you are not taking advantage of the opportunity to follow thought leaders, peers, customers and competitors in your industry, you are losing out. Big time.

Personal Statistics of Twitter Profiles

To indulge my new obsession, I started playing around with the various tools available to measure your popularity, influence, clout and reach on Twitter. I am by no means an influencer (yet) so it is interesting to see how these tools interpret my Twitter presence. Here are my stats:

1) Twitter Grader (powered by Hubspot)

Twitter Grader grades your influence based on a comparison to millions of other users. The report is pretty basic but gives a solid by-the-numbers evaluation. From what I can tell, the grade is determined by number of followers, number of people you are following, and frequency of updates. I like the layout of the report and am pretty happy with my score at 95.2%. Not much room for improvement though.

2. Twitalyzer

Twitalyzer analyzes your profile based on 5 categories: Impact, Engagement, Influence, Generosity and Clout. The score is based on my Twitter activity from the 7 days prior to running the report. This site has a whole lot of fun tools and metrics that I could spend hours playing with. Good stuff. I like how this site breaks down your ranking into categories. In my opinion, Generosity and Engagement are underrated in other tools. Clearly I need to work on my Impact, Influence and Clout.

3. Twinfluence

The influence metric measured by this site is based on the combined reach of you and your followers. I suppose this is based on the actual reach of your tweets should they be retweeted by your followers. This analysis (and the language explaining it) was a little too technical for me. I didn’t quite understand if I had “twinfluence” or not.

4. Twitaholic

Twitaholic measures statistics over the lifetime of your profile. It says when you joined and how many followers you’ve acquired over the span of your account. It’s a pretty basic report and I can’t say that it offers too much insight. I do like that I’m ranked 14th in my location, Encinitas, CA. That will be a fun number to watch – I wonder when I’ll be #1.

5. Klout

Last but certainly not least, Klout offers a pretty detailed calculation of the size and strength of a person’s sphere of influence on Twitter. The site rates a person’s overall influence through analysis of over 25 different variables and ranges from 1-100, with 100 being the most influential. My score of 23 is on the low end but the site classifies me as a “connector” – someone who is a steady source of trusted information. The report says I am “influential to a tightly formed network that is growing larger.” Apparently you can run a new evaluation every 48 hours. Cool. I look forward to watching my “klout” improve.

If you are using Twitter, I’m sure you’ll enjoy these tools as much as I did. You can find me on Twitter at @GretchenGary. Hope to see you there.

Funny to think about the first time I heard the term “Web 2.0”. I was working in Costa Rica and was talking to a vendor in the states who happened to mention how the travel industry had been impacted by the new social Web. I wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about so I picked his brain to learn more.

I always felt out of the loop when I was living in Costa Rica. Things take a while to trickle down there and most companies are using last year’s marketing techniques. The really innovative stuff happens here in the states and then slowly permeates to the developing world. But I digress…

Web 2.0 was only the beginning. I later realized that thought leaders in the states were also pioneering a new approach to public relations with PR 2.0. While I was already using online PR distribution tools, I was totally out of the loop on how to directly reach consumer audiences without the media middleman. I was getting plenty of good press with the local publications, but not gaining much exposure with the greater online community. The nature of the PR game had changed, but I didn’t know the rules.

I’ve been back in the states for about a year now and feel like I’ve been playing a frantic game of catch up. Everything from the way people search for information to how they get their news has changed. Knowing these trends couldn’t be more important.

I was always good at generating buzz and getting my story in the news. But now, it is my online peers who I have to seduce with my stories. Forget the pitch. People on the social web want something genuine and interactive. Give them content that they’ll want to share, and each of them has the potential to be a PR channel for your message.

Success lies in finding the right distribution channels, communities and conversations. To attract more eyeballs and capture longer attention spans, embed a video into your release, include an RSS feed or incorporate your Twitter and Facebook profiles into your company bio. The Social Media Press Release (first created by Todd Defren) is open to interpretation but the key to its success is shareability. Will people want to share your content with their communities?

Celebrity personalities, stay-at-home moms and average Joes are new media influencers, broadcasting news, product reviews and opinions to sometimes staggering audiences. To put this new phenomenon into perspective, consider the popularity and reach of the Huffington Post, a 5-year-old blog that may surpass the New York Times website in unique visits this year.

The blogosphere is gaining prominence – so much so that most new websites are built with blog-based software and templates. And every day, more companies implement social media campaigns that look to leverage sites like Facebook and Twitter to increase brand awareness and exposure. Expounding on this trend, PR firm Burson-Marsteller released a study earlier this year on the 100 largest companies in the Fortune 500 and found that 79% were using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogs to communicate with customers and other stakeholders.

Not only is the content game changing, but also the ability to analyze your reach. By measuring page views, trackbacks, tweets, comments and network sharing of your content, you can determine ROI metrics that reveal the effectiveness of your campaigns. Was your story popular? Now you can tell by how many shares, recommendations and “likes” it received.

PR 2.0 is only the beginning of the communications revolution. Everything is changing. You have two options – embrace the changes and find your edge or wait till later and play catch up.

I’m new to social media. And unless you are one of the original thought leaders like Chris Brogan, Pete Cashmore or Brian Solis, chances are you’re new to social media too.

Social media is far too new for a comprehensive how-to guide. And beyond the terms of service of each site, all we have are some loose rules and guidelines to establish general etiquette (Tamar Weinberg published a great article on the subject a while back that is still very relevant). As things are always changing, there is no set right way to approach social media, but there are definitely some wrong ways.

Here’s my Top 10 list on mistakes people and companies make in social media:

1) Not listening

Ever try having a conversation with someone who isn’t listening to you? Chances are, those conversations don’t last long, right? The same goes for social media. Not taking the time to listen to what your friends, followers or target audience is saying is not only selfish, it’s rude. Social media is about talking with, not at people. There is no monologue anymore, only dialog.

2) Too much self-promotion

Don’t be the cheesy sales person that can’t stop talking about your great product. Would you do that at a party while mingling with friends? People are especially critical of overly commercial messages in social communities. In order to build trust in this forum, you must offer something of value to the community (and I’m not talking about a special discount on your amazing product – that only works for mega retailers like Dell). The general rule of thumb is that only 5-10% of your tweets or status updates should be related to self-promoting sales activities (including calls to action, promotions, discounts or links to your sales funnel pages). The majority of your posts should offer insight, information, tips and resources that can help make your friends’ and followers’ lives easier. Humor is always welcome.

3) Automation with no sign of engagement

With the rising popularity of social networking sites, an influx of automated software applications has flooded the market. And while yes, it does free up a lot of time to automate your posts and have bots out there finding new followers or friends, automation defies the purpose of social media. Be sure to check in every once in a while, participate in conversations, post original thoughts and ideas, and humanize your profiles. If you are not engaging, you don’t get it. See #1 on this list.

4) Speaking from the perspective of a brand rather than an individual

Social media is about individuals. You can’t build a relationship with a brand – it isn’t possible. Customers want to engage with the individuals behind the brand and make real connections. Be human and show that you care. The reason why the ComcastCares Twitter initiative was so successful was directly related to the fact that Frank Eliason put his name and face on the profile.

5) Ignoring negative comments

Perhaps the biggest concern of company involvement in social media is the inevitable negative comments and complaints. The bottom line is that the conversation is already happening, whether you are there to respond or not. Consumers are now armed with powerful platforms to express their discontent and influence vast communities of like-minded peers. Mainstream consumer influence is here to stay and ignoring your critics will only hurt your public image. Be transparent, accept criticism, and RESPOND. You will be surprised to know how far a little TLC can go on the social Web. And to top it off – you’ll gain respect. Again, Comcast comes to mind.

6) Preventing or making it difficult to leave comments on blogs

If you didn’t want to engage with your audience, why did you start a blog anyway? Disabling the comments feature is essentially disabling the conversation. People notice and it doesn’t look good. While less extreme but still bad practice, making it difficult to post comments by forcing readers to register first is time-consuming and annoying. You are impeding the conversation. Comments empower your customers and boost your search rankings so any effort to prevent them is a lose-lose approach.

7) Making social media your be-all replacement to the marketing plan

Social media is not the be-all replacement to all traditional marketing practices… yet. Until the entire world is online and using social media, traditional marketing is not going anywhere. According to InternetWorldStats.com, approximately 1.6 billion of the world’s 7 billion people are online. That’s about 23%. We still have a long way to go.

8 ) Featuring only corporate marketing messages and press releases on your blog

Blogs are a company’s best opportunity to be direct with customers and build real relationships. Your blog voice needs to be believable, genuine and transparent – not regurgitated corporate jargon that was approved by the legal department. The more human your voice, the better it will be received.

9) Sending email SPAM to friends or followers

Someday I hope there will be a similar law for social media as there is for email in the CAN-SPAM act. Sending unsolicited emails to your friends, contacts and followers is SPAM (this includes the auto-DM on Twitter and promotional emails to friends on Facebook). The only exception to this is with Facebook pages and LinkedIn Groups where fans and members have opted in to receive email. Do not SPAM your friends.

10) Believing you have mastered social media

I think Brian Solis sums this up best by saying “we should never strive to master something that evolves much faster than our ability to fully grasp its lessons, benefits, insights and pitfalls.” (Engage, 2010)

This is my second attempt at a blog. The first fizzled after I realized I wanted my blog and website all under the same domain roof and so I embarked on what became a 3-month journey in procrastination to implement a blog into my site, gretchengary.com.

It’s not exactly what I had envisioned but turns out, I’m way out of the loop as far as blog CSS and don’t have the time to learn it. I thought about implementing a Thesis theme and converting the entire site, but apparently, I have grown quite attached to my old-school Web 1.0 site and am having a hard time letting it go. This is my temporary fix.

So welcome. I’m not sure how this blog will evolve but I promise to keep it relevant and interesting.

I don’t want to be just another marketer preaching to the choir. Instead, I hope to offer a little insight in a unique and original way that keeps you coming back for more, and might even inspire you to subscribe to my RSS feed.

I welcome you to join me as I attempt to define my personal brand, find my voice and discover my own personal gift to the blogsphere.