Michaels Stores using Social Media

Chris Yates video interview with Michaels Chief Marketing Officer Paula Puleo at DFWAMA event.

Michaels Chief Marketing Officer Paula Puleo believes that Social Media is the new Prime Time. So her energy and focus is shifting to Social Media. Michaels stores created a Facebook page in March 2010 and now has over 180,000 fans.

The other key elements to strong marketing according to Puleo are:
1) solid analytics
2) pulse on customer
3) alignment w/ operations
4) re-invent agency model
5) balance

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Kimberly-Clark CMO says focus on Customers

Kimberly-Clark products are used by 1.3 billion people—nearly a quarter of the world’s population. With brands such as Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex and Depend, Kimberly-Clark holds the No. 1 or No. 2 share position in more than 80 countries.

They have a 137 year history of innovation but the interesting part about Kimberly-Clark and their dominant brand? They never had a Chief Marketing Officer until four years ago when they hired Tony Palmer.

Palmer was the guest speaker at a DFWAMA event to talk about Marketing. Chris Yates from Huddle did a video interview with Palmer who says Marketing is simple if you focus on one thing.

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Chevrolet Social Media Strategy

The best way to understand strategies for Social Media is to figure out the profiles of those involved. According to the book “Groundswell” there are 5 types of groups involved in Social Media.

1) Spectators – Read or watch videos online but don’t really respond or participate in the dialogue.

2) Joiners – Maintain a profile on social sites but are not involved daily.

3) Collectors – A little more involved in Social Media. They use RSS feeds and “vote” on social sites.

4) Critics – Post ratings/reviews. Comment on blogs, contribute to forums, and contribute or edit articles.

5) Creators – The most active are creators. They publish blogs, websites, upload videos they created, upload audio or music they created, write and comment on blogs.

Companies trying Social Media marketing are typically the creators. Their goal is to create interesting content so the critics, collectors, joiners and spectators want to read and engage with their message.

Chevrolet tried a different approach during a race at Texas Motor Speedway. Chevrolet wasn’t the creator of the content instead they invited Social Media bloggers, videographers, and photographers to take part in the driver introductions and gave them the opportunity to tell about their experience.

This Social Media Strategy worked because Chevrolet gave individuals a unique experience that was worth sharing. Chris Yates got to drive around the 2009 Truck Series Champion Ron Hornaday. It was a great experience to drive in front of Nascar fans and share this experience with a video produced with a Flip Camera.

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Southwest Airlines approach to Social Media

Southwest Airlines is not only connecting flights they’re connecting people. Southwest Airlines was one of the first companies to get involved with Social Media. They have always believed that communicating with their customers is crucial and now they can do it more effectively with Social Media.

Southwest Airlines created a blog a couple of years ago that gets millions of readers. They are also involved in Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Huddle Productions got to do a video interview with Paula Berg the Manager of Emerging Media at Southwest Arilines on this topic.

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<a href="http://v.wordpress.com/a87NyR8h“>Video with Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines is involved with Social Media and created a blog a couple of years ago that gets millions of readers. They’re also involved in Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Chris Yates did this video interview with Paula Berg the Manager of Emerging Media at Southwest Arilines on this topic.

Pizza Hut on Facebook

Pizza Hut is finding great success with Social Media. They have over 970,000 Fans on Facebook and have created some buzz on Twitter.

The Twitter concept started with their campaign to hire a summer intern called “Twintern.” The job was to tweet about Pizza Hut. They got thousands of candidates and plenty of publicity. You would not think stories about a Twitter intern would get some attention but after the search started articles appeared everywhere including the New York Times.

Huddle Productions did a video interview with Scott Lindsey the creative director of IMC2 who helped their client Pizza Hut with its Social Media strategy.

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http://v.wordpress.com/ktjuhFH1

Pizza Hut is finding great success with Social Media. They have over 3.1 Million Fans on Facebook and have created some buzz on Twitter. Chris Yates did a video interview with Scott Lindsey the creative director of IMC2 who helped their client Pizza Hut with its Social Media strategy.

Do you have the Mind of a Champion?

The Mind of a Champion is a team of professionals that coaches Performance Intelligence™. Working with both organizations and individuals, Performance Intelligence™ training gives you the ability to perform your best when it matters most.

Performance Intelligence™ is grounded in the principles of sports psychology. It says you have another level to your professional game. Coaching you, the Mind of a Champion team can take you there. Actually, through our coaching model you are equipped take yourself there!

Performance Intelligence™ trains you to recognize your thinking, refocus that thinking to create new routines of the mind – utilizing your strengths, talents, skills and resources at the right time, in the right place and with the right format.

Through an initial Impact Session (Keynote, Workshop or Advance a/k/a Retreat) we coach the actionable attributes of Performance Intelligence™. This is followed by Spaced Repetition – periodic reinforcement of the attributes to promote positive results.

We are not a traditional consulting or training organization. We coach you through the gap between a learned skills set and the what-to-do thinking required to perform your best when it matters most. In bridging this gap our clients increase their ability to achieve results and exceed professional and personal goals.

Here is the video presentation that HuddleProductions.com put together for our client.

For more information visit http://mindofachampion.org/index.php

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Social Media “The Big 4”

Social Media has leveled the playing field for smaller companies to compete with larger companies. In the past whoever had the most money got the best exposure. Social Media has changed that.

The main reason for the competitive balance is “Voice.” Social Media allows anyone to get their message to a larger audience by providing information. The key is still content and providing value but at least the smaller companies can do that because in the past they didn’t even have that option.

So where to begin? Well that can be the intimidating part for some companies because of the wide range of social sites. Ray Wolf the CEO of NetSpray says don’t get overwhelmed just get started and begin with “The Big 4.”

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Facebook Mobile applications

The Richards Group is the largest Ad Agency in Dallas with annualized billings of $1 Billion. Over the last three decades they’ve had some of the biggest brands in the world like Home Depot, Zales, and Chick-fil-A to name a few.

Their strategies vary from client to client but they do understand that most clients need to be involved with Social Media.  John Keehler director of interactive strategies at the Richards Group says they’ve been on Social Sites since 1995. Some of their first campaigns were on MySpace but the real explosion in this arena has been fairly recent.

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Business Plans waste of time?

Business Plans are crucial so why don’t companies make that priority #1? My excuse was always that  I needed to take care of more important items like sales, marketing. meetings and other items.

I missed the boat. I realized that without a plan you have no business. I hired an expert and here is her take on why you need a Business plan.

http://cynichols0226.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/is-writing-a-business-plan-a-waste-of-time/

So what do you think? Do you have a Business Plan? Has it helped? If you don’t have one why not?

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Do you own your Brand?

Creating a Brand used to be easy. Have a message, deliver it to your customers and over time that message became  your Brand. That’s no longer the case.

You don’t even have control of your Brand anymore.

Michael Griffith has been in digital media marketing for 20 years and has seen a new form of Branding taking place because of Social Media.

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