Some shared the news unknowingly, like an IT consultant:

@sohath ReallyVirtual

 Helicopter hovering above Abottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).

Other tweeters were in the know, such as Donald Rumsfeld’s former Chief of Staff:

@keithurbahn

So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.

Intentional or not, these tweets show the power of this social media platform.

Amidst the bin Laden events, the Flint Group Writers were spending a month focused on Twitter, specifically looking to intricately understand the medium and harness its power for our clients and their goals. We found ways to share and enhance our personal and professional interests, from Macs to fringe music to games-in-progress sports action. We see Twitter as a good place to interact with other marketing communications professionals, including media outlets. We understand how Twitter can allow organizations to provide more attentive customer service. Several writers now turn to Twitter first for news, from local happenings in rural areas to major international developments that may affect our clients. Many writers now follow and interact with professionals who will boost Flint’s service to clients. A few are just looking to vent about their favorite sports teams. And all of us are on the prowl for opportunities in and around Twitter that will benefit our clients.

Do you tweet? Personally and/or professionally? What are your Twitter experiences? We always like to from you.

CTO is the world’s largest cleantech business competition and entrepreneur incubator created to find, fund and foster entrepreneurs with big ideas.  It offers entrepreneurs MBA quality training, CEO mentors, seminars and clinics, investors pitch and feedback, and more. CTO has:

• Helped to raise $300 M for 100 firms since 2006
• All 4 North Central CTO Finalists in 2010 have received funding
• CTO funding amounts range from $100,000 to $30 Million
• 80% of participants remain economically viable today
• More than 2,000 new clean technology jobs have been created.

Focus areas:

• Renewable Energy
• Energy Efficiency
• Green Building
• Air, Water & Waste
• Transportation
• Smart Power

Visit:www.cleantechopen.com

Calling All Entrepreneurs – Innovators – Economic Catalysts to a

Cleantech Open Briefing
April 21, Grand Forks, ND

Cleantech Open in the North Central Region is in search of entrepreneur applicants for this year’s competition, company mentors, judges, and partners.   Attend our briefing luncheon in Grand Forks on April 21 to find out more about CTO and how to participate.

The North Central Region Cleantech Open Competition in conjunction with the Red River Valley Research Corridor, Innovate ND, NDSU Research & Technology Park, Marketplace of Ideas & the UND Center for Innovation.

- APPLY, NETWORK & CREATE NEW COLLABORATIVE PARTNERS -

Today, humans are more powerful than ever. They can publish anything at any time online. From a brand management standpoint, it’s a beautifully scary thing.

Word of mouth remains the most powerful and trusted form of advertising. Simply put, friends trust friends. This is true of real-life friends, Facebook friends and blogger friends.  As more people continue to share their thoughts and opinions online, you can’t ignore word of mouse.

So how do you begin to navigate the vast blogosphere?

Photo by hotmayo on Flickr

To print or not to print? That is the question.

I had an interesting conversation with a client last week regarding a very successful digital campaign. Successful and measurable. Bonus.

We started talking ROI, future campaign budgeting, and the hazards of completely moving away from traditional media. This particular client has seen solid success and increased sales by largely focusing on digital media with a strong emphasis on social media. But, the audience for the product is very niche, easy to segment, and prone to online, super-savvy digital consumers.

We’re hearing it loud and clear. The temptation is to shift traditional media budgets from broad-based awareness activity, to very targeted, segmented and measurable non-traditional media. So what’s the answer? It depends on the objectives of the campaign.

I like digital media. I like the fact that I can see exactly how a campaign is performing in real time. I like that prospects and customers can interact with a brand. However, there are many things that impact that interaction. Typically there is a certain level of awareness and trust that precedes an interaction. That is where traditional media continues to make a powerful difference. Basically, you have to look at the entire scope of the campaign, consider the integration and determine the points of interaction. We want to lead consumers down a path to purchase by using an impartial media mix.

It is smart to always consider print, television, radio, billboard to possibly play a part in a campaign. Think about how you personally look at brands and receive messages. What are you subconsciously picking up as you drive by a billboard? What magazines do you browse through? How often do you read the newspaper? And at what point do you go online when considering a purchase? When you do go online, what are you looking for? Is it product information? Product reviews? Specs? Options? Pricing?

That experience and the timing involved vary by what you are purchasing, how large of a purchase it is, how long the sales cycle is, etc.  In order to reach you, different mediums need to be leveraged at different stages and tie back into the objectives.  It’s the same with every product or service we promote. It’s the blend of outreach that gleans the best results.

With every channel, measure, evaluate and adjust as you go. Because we have more opportunities to look at campaigns in real-time, we want to use that information to our advantage.  We shouldn’t be thinking of digital at the expense of traditional media. Instead, think of how the two work in tandem.

With this increase in usage, however, HR directors are scrambling to govern social media activities by employees. This has led to companies large and small creating social media policies for their employees.

Mike Volpe from Hubspot takes a different look at social media policy development in his post Why Social Media Policy is Stupid. In his post Mike states “… the best “policy” is to hire smart people, give them the right coaching and training, set the correct culture around customer interaction, and then punish those who misbehave.” Although we have a social media policy for employees at Flint Group and have helped many clients develop social media strategies and social media policies, I kind of agree with him.

So what do you think, do businesses need a social media policy?

As mobility and the speed and availability of connectivity continue to increase, local search is becoming much easier and much more efficient to accomplish online, rather than having to sift through the yellow or white pages. Besides that, they are adding value to their services through partnerships, user reviews and ratings, and more.

So is the Phonebook dead or nearing its death? What online services do you get the best return from? Please leave your comments below or on our Facebook page.

1) Facebook’s dollar value   2)  Your level of activity   3)  The number of, and activity of your friends

Proving the meaning of his book, the author Adam L. Penenberg wanted to place a dollar value on social-network activity. The more active you are within the application, the more you are worth to Facebook. It’s like picking up quarters on your way to a party. It drives the user to accrue social worth while increasing brand awareness. For every user that clicked on the ad within in the app, 13% purchased the book.

Compare yourself to Michael Jackson and Ashton Kircher by viewing the real-time feed of social elites at Fast Company.

For more information:
How much are you worth to Facebook? by Adam L. Penenberg

Last night I was thinking about the process we went through in booking our trip.  Many queries started either on Google Maps, Cruise Reviews or Trip Advisor.  From there, it was usually a brief stop on the website for the property, then right back to consumer reviews and photos on a third-party site.  This happened over and over.

When we settled on the cruise, we wanted to look at the excursions the ship had to offer. We found ourselves off the NCL website and on to caribbeanportreviews.com to get what we really wanted, which was firsthand opinions of the excursions. My kids wanted to see every square inch of the ship, so we looked at pictures posted by past vacationers, again off the corporate site.  NCL did provide some nice 360 view tools, but there were large parts of the ship missing.

I have seven different websites bookmarked, and when I put them all together, they answered most of the questions we had.  It shouldn’t take that many sites to get the content I’m looking for.  That just leads to a very poor customer experience.  I know it is a big undertaking, but why wouldn’t NCL want to provide a one-stop platform for this information?  Six of the seven sites (the seventh being ncl.com) I used to make my decision had information on all the major cruise lines.  Do they really want potential customers reading about everything everyone else has to offer? 

Are you providing what your customers want? Have you asked them what they want?  Remember, if they are not getting the information they need from you, they are getting it from someplace else.  Do you know where that is?

People are looking for authentic content when making buying decisions.  You need to provide the opportunity for your customers to provide it.  If you don’t have the capacity to maintain a sharing platform, you need to at least provide links out to sites that have this information, like Amazon reviews, Yelp, or Trip Advisor.  Make it easy for your audience. 

Question:  Are reviews, tips and photos less credible when they are on a corporate website, even if they are not being sanitized?  Do you trust them?  Would you go to a third party site anyway?  Tell me what you think.