Tag: Marketing

Some Thoughts On Followers: “Fake followers are hard to shake”

Carl Setzer

I just read “Fake followers are hard to shake” over at AdAge. Yeah, buying followers is tempting. Sure, it might look good on the surface, to have hundreds or thousands of followers. I’ve had many, many people ask me about buying followers. I think is a waste of money.

  • First, why? If your social media efforts are for a business, fake followers aren’t going to come to your store. They don’t engage. They don’t add any value.
  • Then there are all the recent efforts to purge fake accounts. If your follower count drops massively after one of the follower purges, you’re outed
  • Lastly, as this article points out, there are fairly straightforward ways to determine how many fake followers you have. If your goal is to become an influencer, or gain business leads, tools are coming that will out the buy followers tactic.

I expect that, in the not too far distant future, the various algorithms will easily detect copious numbers of fake followers. And I expect that will hurt you, whether via SEO hits from Google or Bing, or social media feeds devaluing your content. I firmly believe this is coming soon.

So, don’t opt for the lazy and fast. Build your brand slowly, carefully and organically. Engage other folks, post good content, and be your unique self.

F***ing Annoying Robocalls

Carl Setzer

Gads! Yet another robocall on my office line. This one was about our “vehicle warranty expiring”. Massively annoying.

I, interested as I am in things marketing, I had to wonder what kind of ROI these provide. How many people bite on these schemes? How much money is made?

I expect that the investment for most of these comes in the acquisition of the spoofing software and the list of phone numbers to use for the fake caller-id. Either time, or a few bucks on some dark-web server. So, like spam email, a very low follow through rate is fine. The software probably sends out hundreds of calls a day (thousands?), so one or two folks responding and closing does, in the end, pay off. This calculus doesn’t include jail time, fines, etc for law violations. If these folks are offshore, they might be lacking.

My main thought: if you’re a legitimate business, I urge you to use caution with these bots. Confirming doctors appointments, is, I think, fine use of these technologies. For cold calling clients: no…dear god, don’t do it! Invest the time and resources to do this right. Research your contacts, know who you’re calling, and how you will make their life better.

What do you think? Let me know.

Some fun with Mailchimp

Carl Setzer

An interesting evening.

I inherited a Mailchimp account. I needed to update the website, organization name (slight name change), address, phone number, etc. My goodness! There were 4 different forms that needed informatio.

Make sure you’ve updated all elements at this section of your account:

  • https://us14.admin.mailchimp.com/account/contact/#

It’ll save you aggravation later.

Please note: I’m still a fan of Mailchimp and their business model. I love how it’s free to start while designed to grow with you and your business. It’s a powerful tool that will help you market professionally with minimal effort. And will scale as you grow.

Let me know if you have any questions. I’ve deployed Mailchimp for multiple businesses and organizations. It’s one of the best investments you can make for your growing business.

My poetry site has been making me proud

Carl Setzer

I created this site a couple of years ago to be a focus for my poetry.

I didn’t think too much of it at the time. Just was following the advice to focus your content. My writings scatter across many interests, so I broke apart my stuff into more focused sites.

Well, A Poet’s Journey has done quite nicely. 1266 subscribers, and the most stable/solid stats (sessions, pageview, etc).

Funny that another experiment, Not Just Seattle, has taken up most of my vanity SEO. The Carl Setzer who opened a brewery in Beijing, getting featured by Fortune magazine, amongst others, has the lion share of SEO for my name. But my Keller Williams Realty page, and Not Just Seattle are on page 1 as well.

As of today, my namesake page, CarlSetzer.com, is on page 3. Crazy that an experiment took over the whole thing! And the site that’s getting the most action is down on page 3.

 

Wow, the most annoying email marketing fail I’ve received…and I’ve seen a few

Carl Setzer

With 7 years working in Real Estate, I’m on tons of email lists. I don’t mind this much, as I get to see what’s going on out in the market. Today, though, got one that violates all my marketing skills, understanding and wisdom.

  1. It was a jpg dropped into an email. I’m not a fan (mea culpa: I’ve done that in the past, mainly out of time, or, sadly, that’s all I had to work with).
  2. In the jpg were several urls. Note: I don’t say “links”. The links were NOT CLICKABLE! Simply text in the jpg.
  3. As I was interested in the property in question, I manually typed the links into a browser. Nope! No worky. Not even the bit.ly one. Not a single link worked.
  4. I saw the project name in the email addresses in the “contact us” section. That was the right URL.
  5. The creme de la creme, the piece de resistance (insert cliche of your choice here): there was no address. No city. Not even a state, region…nothing. When I finally made a url work, I could see that it was on the Washington Coast. Please note: this was for a new real estate development. “Location, Location, Location”?

It seemed like the creator of this campaign worked really hard to ensure I not only didn’t connect, but actually ended up annoyed with them. Amazing how well it violated every tenet I have for effective email communication.

So, do:

  1. Location. Events: have a date, location (address, venue…at least a city), and times. Drives me nuts to get an email for a property that looks interesting, or an event that looks really cool and, well, sorry, it’s it Atlanta. And it’s not until I’m in the registration section that I find that out? Geez!
  2. If you can at all help it, don’t just email jpgs. FYI, spam filters hate them.
  3. Links. Oh. My. Gawd! Making me TYPE your link…from an email?
  4. Links, part ii: Links MUST WORK. Test them! Most people won’t do anywhere near what I did. I was curious at that point and choose to dig. They may have got a click, but they didn’t get a sale.
  5. Segment your market and sell accordingly. I’m not working the Washington Coast market. It’s hours of driving away!
  6. Your main call to action cannot fail. If clicking on the link takes you to a Google page saying “sorry, sparky, no frickin idea what website you’re trying to find”, every erg of energy expended was wasted. Your goal is sales, right? Customers gotta get to your page. Gotta!

Keep your eyes on the prize, folks. Sales pitches to the right people, in the right way, is a splendid thing. Spam? Yeah, no.

Go forth and do great things!

A few reflections on marketing 

Carl Setzer

A few quick reflections…

Focus!

  • An easy, and dangerous, trap: selling to everyone! That kills sales, unless you’re already at a huge scale. Yes, Starbucks, Microsoft, etc, market to the planet. They didn’t start there. First they focused on a niche, on quality service. Build the relationship, the connection, a reputation for expertise and quality. When we find our gift, our marketing sweet spot, business will grow. Slowly but surely, growth. In Steven Covet lingo, when you focus on your area of influence, our area of influence grows. The
  • I like feeling special, connected and cared for. There’s a cafe close to home where I talk with the owners, they ask about my family, they suggest coffees based on knowing my tastes. Clearly, they do a great job communicating appreciation to me. And I’ve become an evangelist. 
  • Marketing power comes with knowledge. Yeah, perhaps a bit cliche, but hear me out. First element: expertise. Whether it’s a specialized real estate niche, coffee and pastries, burgers…It can anything. Second: know thy customers! What do they like, what makes them happy, what they hate; you get the picture. Lastly, with both bits of power, build marketing tools to grow that connection. There are so many great customer/client relationship tools out there which let you build specialized communication plans. Spend time building out those tools, knowing them, using them to make your customer’s lives better. 

That last line is the key: “make your customer’s lives better”. Every action needs to push that way, drive with that focus. 

Fan Engagement: Zoe Keating

Carl Setzer

I’ve been a fan of Zoe Keating for years. Besides enjoying her music greatly, I’ve also been very interested in the way she interacts with her fans. She’s used today’s social media landscape exceptionally well to build her brand, and a career as a musician within a very unique niche.

Her main tools for engagement are:

What’s a bit more surprising to me are the tools she doesn’t use. Her YouTube channel is pretty spare, and not recently updated. Considering how much I’ve heard about video being “the” thing, looks like she’s experimented with it and has moved along. Now, if you search for her music there, you’ll find tons of videos, but that’s mostly uploads from fans, interviews and such. Also, her music has been uploaded to Vimeo, but, again, not by her. So, she’s present in the world of video, but not deeply so.

I’m also surprised she doesn’t have any campaigns on Patreon nor on Kickstarter. Now, her music is available on iTunes, Spotify, and many other online services. So she might not feel the need to have these income streams. Other musicians and artists in similar styles and viewpoints use them quite heavily, like Amanda Palmer.

Considering all that, it’s important to look at which of these avenues is the most profitable to her. As the chart below shows (created by the folks at Business Insider), most of her income comes from iTunes, Bandcamp and Amazon.

Graph of Zoe Keating's income sources
A look at Zoe Keating’s income sources

 

* Some thoughts on Fanbridge: I imagine it’s a great tool, and it is competitively priced. But it’s important to point out that Mailchimp is quite a bit cheaper, at least at the start. I also wonder if it interacts with any specialized CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools. That would certainly bump up the value of Fanbridge. Mailchimp plays well with several CRM tools. Also, some of the serious competitors, like Constant Contact or Salesforce have those tools fully baked in. With that, I’m unaware of Zoe using any CRM tools. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t, just don’t see anything.

Lastly, Ms. Keating speaks some to these point in the video below. Worth your while.

 

If you’ve liked what you read, please take a moment to let me know in the comments. And give it a share!

My Social Media Management Philosophy

Carl Setzer

I managed social media for several companies. My desire had always been organic growth. Most of my efforts are via thoughtful content and local engagement. My strategies do include the use of such tools as Google and Facebook ads, thatsbtgenlimit of paid reach. I never advise the buying of followers. 

I’ve known several folks that have done so. Now, ostensibly it looks great. Having thousands of followers looks like it grants you significant authority, makes you look like an influencer. More sophisticated eyes will see through it. When most of your followers are bots, for instance, the validity of your authority becomes suspect. 

With that, paid followers don’t provide meaningful engagement. We need to remember the why. Why did you start social media? Probably to gain customers. The likelihood any of those paid followers is going to turn into a client is pretty near zero. 

Don’t get wrapped up in the numbers. It’s better to have a few subscribers or followers who are fully engaged with you, than tens of thousands who don’t. Influencing is far more about engagement than about follower counts. 

Pro-tips to maximize social media marketing

Carl Setzer

I subscribed to Ragan’s PR Daily years ago. Ragan provides timely insight into the current state of PR and it’s related fields.

Lauren Friedman just posted “3 tips for creating a real-time marketing command center“. Her points are spot-on. Read the article! However, here’s the  highlights:

  1. Social Media marketing/PR is about engagement (sorry for the buzzword, but it’s important to get this). Listen to the audience, read hashtag threads, know what the discussion is about and your relevance to it.
  2. Know your market! How is your audience going to respond your commentary. And, sometimes, silence is valuable. One doesn’t need to be involved in every high-profile discussion, and at times it’s critical to steer clear.
  3. Teamwork: having valued “ears” you can bounce ideas off “right now” is valuable. Diversity is key to those teams, ensuring you avoid the tone-deaf statements.

So, take a minute and give it a read.