In all the hype that I read on-line, I’m reminded of the 80’s Wendy’s advertising campaign, “where’s the beef”? All too often as an agency, we’re seeing companies careening headlong down the social media path without considering WHY they need a social media strategy or constructing a clear strategy and framework – where they are today, how social media can “interoperate” as a channel, and how the investment in social media relates to achieving company goals and objectives.

Finding the Beef – Building a Successful Social Media Channel

From our perspective, the starting point is pretty clear. And one of the most important things to understand is that mobile, social media and on-line channels are becoming almost inseparable. But what we find consistently is that companies are engaging in a social media strategy without having a fully baked (or even partially baked) strategy and understanding of the medium and, what is required to be successful. Or perhaps they are paralyzed because they lack understanding of this new channel and don’t know how to assess cost or viability. So for those wondering what the next steps are, or who are feeling left behind and not sure how to proceed, we have the following tips. It’s really just another business case….

Start by asking some basic questions:

 What are the elements that will ultimately support a social media strategy? A basic SWOT analysis. An inventory of products and services; features and benefits; your value proposition. Market position assessment (versus your competition). Stakeholder messaging.

 What do you want to accomplish with a social media strategy? Do you want to build a sales pipeline (awareness, interest, evaluation). Do you want to drive sales? Drive traffic to your web site or sales micro sites? Is your goal to develop a stronger brand? Or do you want to build a loyal community of users? Followers?

 Who are your customers? Prospects? Other stakeholders? Where do they go to get their information? How do they make decisions? Are they on-line? What are they searching for? Who are the industry influencers?

 How are your products and services segmented today? How are they differentiated? Do you have an ongoing source of product development, market intelligence and customer service feedback? With traditional communities? Using on-line communities?

 What do your sales channels look like? Affiliates of agents? Direct sales? Call Centers? E-Commerce?

 How will you measure success of your social media plan? And how will it fit into your overall channel strategy and work with other tactics? SEO. SEM. Public Relations. Sales. Demand Generation. Web. Etc. And if you are driving traffic to websites or a call center – how do you measure the source of that traffic today? And how will it change by adding a social media channel?

 Do you have an active or potentially active user community? Customer service opportunity?

 And probably most important… Do you have a rich source of content today? Experts? Buyers Guides? White Papers? Checklists? PR Forum and blog topics? Published articles? Educational articles? Pictures? Multi-media PowerPoint, Keynote, Video, Animation? Viral content?

If you can answer these questions you’ll be well informed to take the next step in building a successful social media strategy that compliments your other marketing channels, with a budget that is tailored to meet your goals and objectives.

Our team is growing. Located in Portland, Maine, Perry & Banks is a full- service marketing agency with in-house public relations expertise. We need an account executive to fill an important role in content creation and media relations.

So here’s your chance to impress. Send an email to hr@perrybanks.com and let us know why you’d be a fit on the PR team. Spelling counts. Address your submissions to Rob Coburn.

The requirements are clear:

• BA/BS 3-5 years of agency experience (Client side is ok if your group operated like an agency to the company)

• Excellent writer

• Ability to pitch and place stories

• Ability to dig into a client’s business and understand the what, why and how

If that’s you, we’re looking forward to your email.

Created on the WordPress CMS publishing platform for easy editing and maintenance by Gardiner Main Street personnel, the site provides both residents and visitors with rich multimedia content that serves as a guide to the city’s many Heritage Tourism and waterfront attractions; a portal to Gardiner’s economic development and business opportunities; and a fundraising tool for the volunteer organization behind the ongoing revitalization efforts.

Visitors can access an up-to-date Calendar of Events, a downtown business directory, and a listing of available properties in the historic downtown district for new businesses. The site also links to Gardiner’s social media presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter, as well as a new Gardiner Main Street blog that is about to get underway.

The site was developed in WordPress because of its open source (non-proprietary) technology and simple browser-based editing tools that require no special software and minimal technical ability to upload and modify content. The Perry & Banks team had a blast putting it together, and we’re proud to add it to our portfolio of successful web projects.

So for all of our talk about going virtual – and nodding our heads up and down as we discussed this kind of technology with our clients – last week we went “virtual” while our new offices were under construction.

First, we needed a new phone system that would link us together just as seamlessly as if we were in our offices. We had to be able to dial each others extensions, glue conference calls together, both inside and outside of our communications network and collaborate on all manner of projects.

Second, we wanted a more scalable telecom infrastructure that was more flexible and could take advantage of the cost savings associated with VoIP technology. Getting rid of traditional, long term contract T1 lines and replace them with Ethernet based SIP trunks.

And third, our phone, email, creative and business systems had to be virtual as well. This meant establishing a secure colocation facility that could be accessed from anywhere, and at any time.

Lastly we needed a partner that would work with us to pull all of this together in one week. Yup. One week. But that’s another story! So we also want to extend our personal and professional thanks to Bob Marsh and the team at Omnia Technologies for working very hard to make our first real foray into the virtual office a resounding success!

And yesterday we had our first virtual meeting – but old habits die hard. And so we all met at the icon of the Portland Maine breakfast waterfront scene – Becky’s Diner – at 8:30AM for our regular production meeting! More on virtual staff later on…

Perry & Banks New Home - 10 Danforth Street Portland, Maine

On Jun 20, 2010, at 1:27 PM, Rob Coburn wrote:

Much to share. Miss you guys. We finished this am. Raced hard in back and back sprint to beat a team by three minutes. 90 miles of really intense bike racing. I did good.

Rob Coburn with Team Type 2 at the finish line of RAMM

Falling asleep now at 1:20 pm. Just had first real shower (except for the one at a motel near Walmart where a guy checking out let me use his shower as they packed up to check out). Can’t wait to be home.

Rob Coburn

The following is an update from Rob on the VSP Vision Care blog (sponsor of the team).

Over a quarter of the race down, and I’m somewhere in Colorado. The Milky Way is an incredible sight at night, and the Monument Valley just after sun up is truly breathtaking.

It’s 4 p.m. mountain time and I’m off to “bed”. We’re on the road for the next 3-plus hours in an RV to meet the squad that’s riding now. Sleep is hard to come by in shifts of approximately three hours in the RV. I’ll be back on the bike around 1:00 am, and there will be more climbing tonight.

We’ve logged 321 miles from Flagstaff, Arizona to Durango, Colorado in the past 24 hours at an average speed of 17.5 miles per hour. This puts a total of 857 miles behind Team Type 2, and we have 2,147 miles still to complete. Fortunately, the climbs and elevation of the Rocky Mountains will be complete soon, which will bring us to the rolling hills of Kansas and Missouri.

The team is really making good use of our Nike sunglasses which have replaceable lenses. I looked up as I was swapping out the dark lenses to the clear lenses for night riding and saw that two of my teammates were doing the same thing.

If you’re anywhere near our route, come out and cheer us on. We’d love to see you!

We’re all wishing Rob the best of luck in this amazing endeavor, and are looking forward to more updates in the coming days!

For more infomation:
Team Type 2 website
Team Type 2 on Twitter

This is where we’ll be:

Generating leads. Driving traffic. Building awareness. That’s why top DR industry marketers and service providers look to Perry & Banks. Our knowledgeable Public Relations approach – with the right mix of both traditional and emerging communications methods – delivers bottom-line results.

Nope, we‘re not your average PR agency.

Call Laurie Banks at (207) 761-5957 x303 and let’s talk about what you need.

(l-r) Michael, Laurie, and Gardiner High School Students Tyler and Justin prepare to shoot at Gardiner’s famous A-1 Diner (photo by Mike Giberson)

Taking advantage of the warm early spring weather, Laurie Banks and Michael Townsend spent a day in Gardiner shooting brief interviews with business, community and civic leaders, to be edited into the web videos. To get the community involved in the process, our crew was comprised of talented Gardiner High School video production students, who handled the camerawork and audio recording with a good amount of expertise and enthusiasm.

My thanks to writer Peter Smith for getting the facts right, but his caption/interview is basically about what’s on that cluttered desk and bulletin board you see, certainly not the story of how the line was created (or how it’s lasted some 22 years now). It’s something I’m naturally proud of, and now that my claim to fame has been officially recognized by the media, I thought this was the right moment to share the tale of its origins.

I was a copywriter at AC&R in New York, working on major brands like Seiko, Estee Lauder and Maxell. Living in Dover, NJ and commuting by train. In 1984, one of my best friends bought some property in Lubec, Maine and miraculously escaped the Jersey lifestyle. That summer, and the next summer too, we made the 11-hour drive to spend a week at his tiny camp on the edge of a cliff overlooking Johnson Bay. Hilliary and I felt like we could breathe (and really sleep) for the first time in our lives!

One afternoon, we were having a beer on Steve’s rickety deck when he pointed out a lobsterman a few hundred yards out on the bay pulling up his traps. Next thing I knew, we were in his little skiff, rowing out to the lobsterman and buying four of his just-harvested catch for a few bucks apiece. Then we rowed back to the house, boiled up some water, and soon were back on the deck with another beer, making a mess with lobster juice and melted butter, tossing the shells over the railing and down to the pebbly beach below, where they were quickly snatched up by an alert gull.

Pausing between claws, I sat back in my chair, took a deep breath, flashed on my 90-minute commute and the other somewhat ugly aspects of the way life was for me back in NJ, and well, you can guess what I felt: “Now THIS is the way life SHOULD be.”

Michael and daughter Lily (age 10), in 1998 on I-95 in Kittery

Before we left his place, Steve suggested, “if you want to do what you do but in Maine, you should check out Portland.” So we pulled in to the Old Port on a quiet August Sunday in 1985 on our way back. Had a pint at 3 Dollar Dewey’s. Walked down Commercial St. Hill bought a t-shirt that said “Life in the slow lane.” Two months later, I was back in town with my portfolio, calling every ad agency in the Portland yellow pages and saying “I’m a copywriter from New York, want to see my book?” Nearly every one of them said yes, and one ended up hiring me.

Fast forward another two years. Our agency had the Maine Tourism account, which was up for review. Thanks to a new Governor who had just taken office that year, the stakes were raised to about six times what the budget had been previously, and just about every marketing company in the state was after it. We still had one campaign left on our existing contract, and knew if we could come up with a killer line, have it already in place and running on tv for that last campaign, it would be the creative centerpiece of our pitch and would assure a win.

After a few weeks of contentious brainstorming and private brain wracking, my mind drifted back to that feeling on Steve’s deck in Lubec. This is Maine. The way life should be.

Not only did the line win us the new contract, but it quickly started taking on a life of its own, showing up on t-shirts, bumper stickers, sugar packets, and most notably, the highway signs as you crossed the border into Maine from New Hampshire, New Brunswick and Quebec.

The slogan disappeared from Maine tourism ads after a year or two, but thanks to those highway signs, it had already become ingrained into the consciousness of both residents and visitors. I had moved on to other opportunities by then, but the story was far from over. To be continued in Part Two…