Hey guys, welcome to Shama.tv. Today is an excellent episode because not only are we doing Whiteboard Wednesdays, we’re also doing ‘clean dog day’ here in our household. Snoopy got, went to the groomers’ today and got all clean. Hi honey! Hi puppy! And he’s decided to join us for Whiteboard Wednesday, so we’ll let him sit right there and hopefully you guys can still see the whiteboard.

Your comments last time were very appreciated. A lot of you guys Twittered me; some of you left comments on Facebook. I see that you guys really enjoyed the Whiteboard Wednesday, and I’m so glad. The one feedback that many of you did have was, “Why don’t you get this thing mounted?” and I’m working on that, I promise. Of all the things that I try to do, handyman is not one of them, or handywoman for that matter, so as soon as I can get one of the guys in my life to come put this up – that would either be my dad or my husband – to put this up, we’ll go ahead and get this mounted.

But for now, we’re going to do Whiteboard Wednesday. Today’s topic is social media. And just when you thought I couldn’t use the whiteboard to explain social media, I can. There’s a couple of things that you need to understand about social media marketing and here is the most important aspect. What is the number one reason most people join social networking sites? Think about it. If you’re thinking community or relationships, you’re partially right.

The first reason people join social media sites is for – that’s right – identity. That’s the first reason that people join social networking sites. It’s to showcase who they are. The second reason is to build relationships, connections if you will. And the third reason is community. But that’s the primary reason, and that’s the one that most marketers ignore.

Most marketers focus right here before ever thinking about this. If people are joining social networking sites, it’s because it says something about them. So when we fan a page on Facebook, or Tweet something on Twitter, we do those things not because of this necessarily, but because of this. Because we’re trying to establish our identity. We’re establishing it, we’re showcasing it. I love Coca Cola because that says something about me. I love dogs because that says something about me. I love whatever I may love because it says something about me, not necessarily because I love the company.

So what do marketers have to do? Marketers have to realize that for people to identify with their brand, their brand has to be cool, and even B2B marketers can do that, right? Give them some incentive to make it part of their identity. How can you make it cool for people to want to talk about your brand? And that’s where social networking begins, and that’s Whiteboard Wednesdays for you here from Shama.tv.

Hey guys, welcome to Shama.tv. In today’s episode, I want to talk to you guys about how to promote an event or a get-together, whatever you might be throwing, using online marketing and specifically, I want to talk about how you guys can market your events using social media or new media marketing. So here are my tips for you.

First of all, it’s a really good idea to approach bloggers in the city that you might be hosting an event in, because one, they already have the audience built; and two, their audience probably has trust and rapport with them. So as long as your topic matches something that the blogger talks about or something the blogger’s audience might be interested in, then the first thing to do is to build that blogger relationship. Hopefully you’re already been doing blogger relationships and working on that, but go to the blogger. Tell them you’re hosting the event. Tell them the city, the date, whatnot, and that’s a really good way to leverage an audience that’s already there in a local city to promote your event.

The other thing to do is also look at meetups.com, because meetups.com is, you know, networking but locally in different cities, and there are, especially in a big city like Dallas here, we’ve got so many meet-ups going on, so the idea is to find multiple meet-ups and approach their organizers and see if they would be okay with you promoting your event to their group. Now, these guys make charge affiliate, you know, an income, but that’s not a bad idea. It’s still a great way to get the word out about your event.

The other thing I want to talk about is on social networking sites, so what can you do?

Twitter. Twitter can be so powerful in getting the word out about an event, so what you want to do is of course Tweet about it, but to really build up the buzz, you may even want to have a little Twitter competition where you say, you know, the X person to re-Tweet this information gets a pair of movie tickets. It doesn’t have to be a huge prize, but it gets people involved and it gets your information out there. So that’s one way.

The other thing is to look at Facebook. What you want to do is set up a Facebook note, a note in Facebook about the event you’re having and then tag the people that you think would be a good fit for that event. I can’t tell you how annoying it is to get tagged on Facebook notes or videos or even pictures that have nothing to do with you, so you really want to make sure that when you have an event – so let’s say it’s a local event, like if there was an event in Dallas – I would only tag the people that I thought would benefit from it. So again, you’re providing value. You’re sharing with them something that you think is going to be cool, but you’re not going out there and mass-tagging people. It makes all the difference in the world.

You can also use LinkedIn. Again, same principle. You can set up a LinkedIn event. You can go into LinkedIn groups and, you know, check with a moderator to see if it’s okay, and announce your event.

Hey guys, welcome to Shama.tv. So today I want to talk to you about a word that gets thrown around a lot, and I’m not sure everybody really understands what it is, and the word is “Brand.” It is not a ‘Woohoo’ word, it is not a vague word. The word ‘brand’ stands for your company defined in one word or one phrase, and that is your brand. It’s the feeling. It is the values that are intrinsic to your business – all that combined, all that summed up into one feeling or one thought. That is your brand.

And what I want to talk to you about today, more than just defining your brand and understanding it, is the importance of going into your brand. See a lot of people think that thinking outside the box is cool and nice…

Hi Snoopy! Hi! Snoopy doesn’t do any thinking outside the box actually. He is all about inside the box, and that’s what I want to talk to you guys about.

It’s so important to think inside the box. Think inside your brand. People look outside to the next cool thing, to the next happening thing, and I’m not saying that’s wrong. It’s totally okay to look outside and see… Well, hi there, hi there. It’s totally okay to go outside and look at technology and see what’s out there, or what tools can I use. Absolutely! But you also have to always come back to your brand and see what is the intrinsic value of your brand, and go deeper into that.

And I’ll give you an example. One of our clients does an excellent job with it. They are k9cuisine.com and they sell dog food online. They have seen phenomenal growth for the time that we’ve been with them, for the past 24 months. They’ve seen record sales. And because these guys don’t necessarily always think outside the box, they use social media tools; they’re doing all the things they can to reach their audience; but their main goal isn’t always to come up with creative ways to do cool things. It’s always about their core values, which are, you know, they are a family company. They’re owned by Anthony and Kay Holloway, a wife/husband team who are really passionate about animals. So they have this passion for animals. They have, it’s a very family-oriented team. The customer service is their priority. These are the things, this is their brand, that they keep looking deeper into and say, “Is this… Does this strategy fit what our brand is?”

So always delve deeper into your brand. Start looking inside what your core values are for your business, rather than outside because thinking out of the box just happens to be cool. Because I can tell you that sometimes it’s more important – often it’s more important – to look into your brain, into your own intrinsic values for your business, than it is to think outside the box.