Please send all questions to Starr@StarrHall.com. Include your biz problem, question, location and business name if you would like (I will include a link from my answer/blog post to your site). I will do my best to get to your question just as soon as possible.

Dear Starr,

Problem: I feel stuck with my marketing efforts, overwhelmed by all of the social media channels and new technologies surfacing daily.

Question: How do I stay focused on marketing that will work and stay informed as well as inspired to market and grow my business? Thank you in advance for your help.

 - Mary Brollen, Tampa, FL

Dear Marketing Mary,

It sounds like you need to get out and grass squash in the park (referring to the scene in Pretty Woman where Richard Gere walks barefoot on the grass) to clear your head, renew your creative marketing energy. When you are looking at the same marketing, same approaches, same results it can become uninspiring and can cause MSS- marketing stuck syndrome.

First thing is first, after you visit the grass barefoot, determine what results you are getting from each and every marketing effort you do. You need to analyze what is causing customers to take action, what is getting them to talk and what is not. Once you know what is working and what isn’t you can better plan forward.

In regard to social and technology overwhelm, we all experience it, you just need to find what works best for you in regard to staying informed. I suggest choosing 2-3 feeds or social/tech channels to browse and read in brief just so you can get the juice out of the updates to stay informed. Be on the lookout for a new app called Summly (invented by a 17 y.o) that will “sum up” news direct to your phone (for now it is iphone focused). Mashable and Techcrunch are great news sites, Social Media Examiner is another great resource to bookmark. 

In closing: Once per month (or once per quarter), generate a marketing outcome assessment report and analyze what is working, what is not, your customer behaviors, when and how they are taking action etc… (there are great programs out there to help with this from SproutSocial to ViralHeat). A lot of these programs are monitoring offline, direct mail response now as well. 

Stay informed in brief, quick little news feed updates to your phone or email. You need to stay informed as to what your customers want, how they want it and the device(s) they connect on. 

I hope this helps you get unstuck and back in action mode, thank you for your letter.

Off to find myself a park with lots of grass, 

Starr Hall 

Excerpt from Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars

(Chapter contributions on Social Media ROI from Starr Hall)

Social media is no longer a fad. Actually, I am not so sure it every really was. What was once dismissed as a possible marketing tool has now shifted into a powerful profit generating business machine. And as  a result, brands that approach and engage this medium passionately will surely profit.

It was only a few years ago that sites were crowded with posts and conversations about how social media could not be tracked or measured in terms of actual profit and return. Those posts and conversations are now changing as social media measurement tools are becoming more effective and efficient in tracking brand building efforts that generate customer loyalty and ultimately revenue. It is now apparent in today’s social space that your conversation and engagement tools will determine your profitability online.

NOTE: It is estimated that over fifty (50%) percent of new business will come from social media and internet marketing efforts over the next five years, furthermore that number could triple by 2020 according to Microsoft Small Business Summit

Why Most Businesses Don’t Profit When Using Social Media-

The use of social media is definitely on the rise and it’s no surprise that more and more businesses are jumping on board to become “social” businesses. Social media opens up new ways to engage with customers and prospects. It can also shorten sales cycles and tap new revenue streams.

Within this social media space, however, where anyone can participate, most businesses social efforts have resulted in little to no revenues. For example, there are millions of bloggers on the web, yet only a handful have built a strong media presence and following. Fewer still have figured out a way to generate any serious revenue from their blogging.

So, why are most businesses completely missing the boat when it comes to driving revenue from their social media efforts? It’s simple really. There are two reasons why businesses can’t seem to pull a profit-

1) They are selling first and not developing relationships- They are using social media for the wrong reasons with the wrong approach, basically using the same traditional outreach that they have always used and they are getting the same result. That is truly the definition of marketing insanity! Just as businesses would place an ad in the paper, they are posting their sales pitch online. You just can’t use these savvy tools with the old used car salesman approach.

2) They do not have correct measurement and tracking systems in place to manage and improve their social media marketing- this is like trying to fly a plane without controls and gauges, you will have no idea where you are going, how you are going to get there or more importantly how to monitor and correct your course as needed.

It’s no wonder businesses embarking on the social media trail get lost and have no return to show from their journey; they are stuck in 1982 still using the traditional approach. This approach only allows a brand to talk one way to their customer or potential market and does not allow them to talk back or to engage with the brand, this is called one-way messaging. Consumers are smarter than ever and they want to be seen, heard, and engaged. Traditional sales pitching, hype and sales bitchy techniques are not nearly as effective with the new consumer.

The reason why social media is so effective is that it allows for two-way messaging and the opportunity to create brand influencers and advocates. Brands can now talk with and engage their market actively online. Consumers feel heard, in this context, and this results in connections with brands and businesses on a deeper level.

When you utilize social media as an engaging brand building tool it will ultimately shorten the sales cycle as well as create new revenue streams. When you put the conversation with the customer first, business growth and financial success will naturally follow. People will buy from brands that listen and engage with them, period.

FOR the rest of this chapter including more INFORMATION on the following:

- Why most businesses don’t profit from their social media efforts

- Why it is important to track and measure your social media results

- Formula on how to calculate your return on investment (ROI) with social media

- Three key strategies on how to profit using social media

and other superstar success secrets…you can pick up a copy of this book at Amazon or wherever books are sold!

Success Secrets of Social Media Marketing Superstars by Mitch Meyerson

(Mitch- you rock!, thank you for including me/my contributions in your book!)

(Blog visitors- as always, I appreciate your contributions, shares, opinions, feedback)

- Starr Hall 

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We are two weeks into 2013, just curious…what are you doing to make sure you gain market share this year, stay ahead of your competition and most importantly obtain and retain happy customers? If you think posting on Facebook or tweeting a few times every day is enough, good luck to you, that is so 2012. Being social is not what it was five years ago let alone last year. Social channels change daily (I told you MySpace would be back and even better!), new technologies continue to surface and customer behaviors are changing faster than Google’s algorithms.

I, just like you have been studying fast and furious on the web to not only keep up but to do the different and maintain quality relationships with my high level clients and contacts. I have cleaned house here at StarrHall.com, I deleted a database of over 20,000 emails, cleaned out my Facebook friends and Linkedin contacts that are no longer my target market, I joined a global agency last year to learn another side of the business (all I have to say is- it is great to be back as an entrepreneur- phew) and I cancelled my speaking tour so that I could dive back into R&D for 2013. I had to, my brain needs a reboost, I have another book due out, I am getting ready to launch my next venture and I want to blow away my competition and fast.

After countless hours of R&D online and off, I have landed on top five things that you should focus on in 2013 to blow away your competition. Feel free to add to this list- this is just a starting point.

1) GoMo- (Go Mobile)- Is your website mobile friendly across devices (android and IOS)? Google has an excellent site to analyze your website and they offer step by step actions that you should take to make your site mobile and device friendly with a focus on shortening the path to purchase. Link- http://www.howtogomo.com/en/d/test-your-site/#gomo-meter

I am currently making a few of these changes on my gomo site as well. For example, when people visit my mobile site, I only want them to have 2 choices. 1) Learn, 2) Hire/Buy.

2) Socialize Your CRM (Customer Relationship Management…Mastery)- I always thought that referencing relationship building as “managing” your customer relationships was silly. Your customers don’t want to be managed. I refer to this as Customer Relationship Mastery. I want to master communications and build quality relations with my high level list of clients and connections. Which program are you currently using for your communications with your customers and clients? Whatever you use, make sure that you have the option to check your e-lists to see where you can connect with your peoples socially. I am referring to sites and programs that can help you expand your email outreach and determine where your customers are social, talking and sharing. Infusionsoft, Constant Contact, icontact to name a few.

3) Incorporate Smarter E-Commerce- When visitors land on your domain and mosite (mobile site), does your site make the purchasing decision shorter yet personable for your customers? Meaning, how many steps does it take to actually purchase from you AND furthermore, are there reviews and recommendations that they can see for your products/services to help shorten this path to purchase?

Reviews are an increasingly important part of the purchase journey for online consumers.  More consumers will be searching for the name of the product plus the word ‘review’, or related words such as ‘ratings’.  If you have reviews on your site, then you stand a better chance of picking up this traffic.

Also remember that bad reviews are valuable too, a mix of positive and negative reviews helps to improve consumer trust in the opinions they read.

A Reevoo study suggest that the presence of bad reviews actually improves conversions by 67%.

A few ecomm sites to check out for your on domain store/carts-

www.Shopify.com

http://www.bigcommerce.com/features/

http://www.drupalcommerce.org/getting-started

 4) Utilize Customer Insights- Monitor and evaluate your customers behaviors and sentiment across channels so that you know how to better engage and move them into taking action. There are some great free and low cost tools available such as www.socialmention.com, www.socialbakers.com and www.twtrland.com.  Of course there are the Ferrari programs like Brandwatch, Omni/Site Catalyst and Radian6 to name a few, some of these will even predict behaviors now- wowza! It is vital that you know what is being said about you and your brand across channels. What is the sentiment? Mostly positive, neutral or negative? No matter what the sentiment is, there is always a huge opportunity to engage the positive and move them into advocates, focus on neutral by engaging and being there and of course responding to the negative in a way that aligns with your brand voice and CRM practices.

5) Co-Brand in Videos- Old Spice did an excellent video campaign on co-branding last year. They partnered with Bounce, a non-competitive brand and created a cobranded video/e-ad.  Think about brands, companies, causes – that you can reach out to and partner with on posts, in videos, domain shares and product/service showcasing.

Link to Old Spice Video- 

Click here to view the embedded video.

As always, thank you for visiting, reading and sharing.

Addicted to Social R&D,

Starr Hall (Egan)

Short and simple blog post…a video- this is a great example: Thank you Savannah for sharing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Action taking me,

Starr Hall

Being raised around and in a global PR family business as well as working in the field for most of my childhood and adult life has made me the social being that I am today, and for that I am grateful. Taking my experiences and being able to work with premium clients around the globe on their public messaging has been tremendously rewarding. Having PR in my blood, my every thought, helped me naturally shift when social channels started to pop up beginning with AOL in the early nineties. When I first joined AOL in their beta group (many years ago), my intuition helped paved the way for my transition into what we now refer to as social media.

Over the years social media has disrupted, evolved, inspired and forced social and public change. In my opinion, what most people have failed to realize along the way is that social media is not just a form of marketing, it is a way of life…a way of doing business and being socially responsible. Although we are all comfortable with the coined “social media” or “social marketing” references, these terms no longer serve true in the digital marketing space today.

Let’s visit this for a blog post and break it down-

mar·ket·ing/ˈmärkitiNG/ 

Noun: The action or business of promoting and selling products or services.

(Starr’s note- being social is not about selling products or services directly, it is about listening, getting to know and responding based on behaviors, interest and needs/wants)

media- plural of me·di·a

Noun: The main means of mass communication regarded collectively: “the campaign won media attention”.

(Starr’s note- social is not about mass communications collectively at an impersonal level, it is about winning your customer/audience attention- so should we call it social audiencing? Starr English)

so·cial/ˈsōSHəl/

Adjective: Of or relating to society or its organization: “alcoholism is a major social problem”

Noun:  An informal social gathering, esp. one organized by the members of a particular group: “a church social”.

Social fits and still rings true, as brands, we should aim for social movement, change, education and connection as well as gathering. Being social is not about selling products and or services, it is about movement and change, your social involvement for the most part will prompt loyalty and purchase as an end result, however being social is about being a movement (whether you are a leader, driver or participant). Social media and social marketing are not the correct approach when describing what a social brand should be and do. Social Relations- or to relate socially- is not only the goal but the absolute.

Starr Hall social commerce

Actually it has been around for quite sometime, however socializing commerce is the next big thing…at least I think so, as does Mark.

Here is my latest post about social commerce, looking forward to hearing your feedback, insights, opinions:

4 Things Your Brand Should Know About Social Commerce

Social commerce is no longer a distant cloud hovering on the horizon. It is floating directly above your brand, and it’s raining opportunity. The first-mover pioneers have already blazed the trails, intelligently and quickly putting social technology in the context of commerce.

According to SocialShop – a national quantitative and qualitative research study conducted by Leo Burnett and Arc Worldwide, forty-two percent of Americans are currently using social media to shop, and that figure will only continue to rise as over 73 percent of people confirmed that they use social more to shop today versus a year ago. Social commerce helps retailers drive product awareness, stimulate competition in the marketplace, and humanize commerce by shifting the emphasis back to personal exchanges.  In the US, social commerce is currently a one billion dollar market, but is expected to grow to $15 billion by 2015. It is one of the top disruptive trends of this decade, and has enormous potential to create compelling customer experiences that increase brand loyalty and advocacy.

Here is what your brand needs to know (and do):

1. Be Innovative- Tie your commerce across social channels and step out to stand out.  That’s what South African brand BOS Ice Tea did recently when it rolled out a Twitter activated-vending machine, exchanging free samples with those who send and share a tweet @bos BOSTWEET4T. The brand is not alone, however, as many companies are rolling out “pay-with-a-share” campaigns. An innovative approach to social commerce is attention-grabbing and highly shareable.  Don’t be afraid to tell consumers, “your total comes to one tweet, please.”

2. Infuse Reviews & Comparisons (Minimize Showrooming with consumers)-  Showrooming, verb – The act of researching products in brick and mortar stores, leaving, researching more online, and making the purchase from home.  Consumers rely on showrooming, but with social commerce, they don’t have to. They trust their social networks, and look to them for reviews, recommendations, price comparisons, testimonials, and overall sentiment towards a product. Imagine a world where consumers can tap into this social intelligence at the point of sales. Imagine infusing the social experience with the in-store shopping experience. Of course, brands can then exercise their innovation and offer a medley of group-buy, shop and share, deals and promotions right there at the point of purchase. Remove the space that is causing consumers to not act and buy. Social commerce — removing space, scale, and time barriers one showroom at a time.

3. Integrate Mobile- Check to make sure mobile is integrated at every touch point, because no matter what the question is, the answer can always be: Yep, there’s an app for that. Price comparison, e-commerce, personalization, loyalty programs, touch-enabled catalogues — there is quite literally no end in sight. But apps do not even scratch the surface when it comes to the powerful potential of mobile technology for social commerce. With a team of tech-wizards, brands can enhance customer social shopping experiences with location-aware and context-aware mobile technology, spurring traffic to their doors with customized geo-targeted deals and rewards.

4. Invest in Social Utility- Social psychologist and market researcher, Dr. Paul Marsden offered a short presentation in April highlighting that social commerce works when consumers see a rise in their social utility.

This utility comes in three forms:

Social intelligence – learning from social networks, profiting from gleaned insights

Social status – managing their self-expression and desire to stand out

Social bonding – finding a personal niche, fitting in

In closing, devise a strategy that incorporates these touch points, and deliver it to market,  keeping in mind that customers bring more customers, so sell socially.

Social me,

Starr Hall

When social media feels overwhelming, go back to basic principles

[Starr says: Here's another guest post from Erika Kerekes, who heads up social media solutions at Deluxe Corporation.]

One of the most common complaints I hear from small business owners about social media is that it’s overwhelming. So many networks. So many experts telling them what they should do, have to do, can’t avoid doing. The technology and the rules change all the time. New social apps and sites popping up every day.

How can anyone hope to keep up with social media and still run a business?

If this sounds familiar, don’t worry. Even those of us who focus on social media for a living feel that way sometimes. In fact, I got the idea for this post from one of Starr’s own Facebook status updates. We all have our moments.

When panic hits, I breathe deeply and go back to basic principles. These simple rules help me cut through my mental clutter and find my social media mojo every time.

• It’s not about technology. Ignore the whizbang stuff and concentrate on the conversation. If you’re spending your social media time having meaningful, interesting interactions with relevant, interesting people, you’re on the right path.
• You don’t have to be first in line. Some people love being “in the know” and can’t wait to play with every new toy and gadget on the social media shelf. Others get anxious at the thought of exploring new tools and social networks. If that’s you, don’t feel like you have to try everything the day or week it’s released. Read the reviews. Listen to what the social media pundits are saying. A lot of today’s new stuff will be gone tomorrow, and you don’t want to waste time or energy on the losers. Wait until you see something getting traction. By that point there will be lots of online tutorials and tip sheets to help you up the learning curve.
• Commenting counts. Sometimes your well runs dry. You can’t muster up another blog post. You’ve run out of photos to post on your Facebook page. When that happens, hang back for a few days and do nothing but comment on and share other people’s social media activity. Commenting is the best way to make real relationships and expand your network, yet most of us in social media (guilty!) do far too little of it. Do unto others, friends, and you may be surprised how quickly you see positive results.
• Real life comes first. You’ve got 10 minutes between meetings. Should you schedule a few tweets or check in on a client? Update your Facebook page or walk down the hall to ask a colleague a question? When I have a choice, I always go for the live interaction. We all get plenty of screen time these days. It’s human-to-human bonding time that’s at a premium. (And yes, I am the mean mom who won’t let her kids bring their mobile phones to the dinner table.)
• There’s always someone willing to help. Whatever social media question you have, whatever problem you’re up against, there’s someone waiting out there who knows the answer and is ready to help. There are loads of free resources (articles, webinars, blogs) and many qualified experts for hire. If you need social media as part of your marketing plan – and who doesn’t these days? – one way or another you’ll get it done.

What keeps you focused on your social media goals? Share your mantra in the comments.

Erika Kerekes heads social media solutions at Deluxe Corporation. She spends her days helping small business owners up the social media learning curve and her evenings blogging obsessively about food at In Erika’s Kitchen.