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Social Media Was Meant For Times Like These

Right now, it is 45 minutes before a Tsunami wave is set to hit the Hawaiian Islands. It’s been several hours since the earthquake in Chile, in which it is estimated that 500,000 people have been displaced from their homes. And I’m on Twitter and Facebook and listening to live streamed video on my laptop at my kitchen table in Colorado. The TV in the living room is tuned to CNN but I am more in tune with these stories because I’m monitoring my Social Media sites. In fact, I am in tune with the eye witnesses of the Chile earthquake, and have read a blog post by someone who experienced the earthquake and wrote about it right afterwards, thanks to a Twitter friend, @efrainortizjr, who posted it in his blog and tweeted it.

I’ve been re-tweeting tweets from @Mashable; @CNNbrk; @HawaiiRedCross; @epiccolorado and joined a group in Facebook called Supporting Chile Earthquake / Tsunami Victims and Families where residents of Chile and Hawaiian Islands are posting about what they are seeing going on in their parts of the world.  I’ve let my followers in Twitter and friends in Facebook know about all of these resources so they, too, can stay informed.

@epiccolorado’s Twitter bio says: EPIC is a research effort at CU and UCI to support the information needs by members of the public during times of mass emergency. EPIC was asking, today in Twitter, for Spanish Tweeters to help them:

I re-tweeted their tweet to my followers and sure enough, a friend I had met in D.C. last November at the LATISM Social Media conference, happened to see my tweet:

@eRomanMe ended up helping @epiccolorado. Here are some of the tweets between them at search.twitter.com (click on “Show conversation”.)

I can hear my TV, from my living room, and CNN just lost its feed in Hawaii but my live stream on my laptop via Mashable.com (who is streaming it from UStream) is still going. My live stream from Chile (via UStream) is still sending images of the aftershocks as they are happening. My Twitter stream of PEOPLE, of course, is still keeping me informed, too, via different hashtags (#chile; #tsunami, etc).

Though I’m praying for everyone, I think my Hawaiian friends will be safe because they have had plenty of warning and there is a full moon which means a low tide. Hopefully, the Tsunami will not be as bad as it could have been. The people of Chile are in need of help right now, just like the people of Haiti last month. During the writing of this, I learned, from @Mashable, that Google launched a Chile Person finder app. You can enter the name of a person you’re looking for OR you can post information you have about a particular person.

Social Media was meant for times like these. Sure, there are people tweeting about what they ate for breakfast today while other people in the world don’t know where they’re going to sleep tonight, let alone when they will get to eat again. But Social Media is like that: it’s made up of the thoughts, hopes, and dreams of millions and millions of people going about their daily lives. Some of us are shopping. Some of us are surviving. And some of us are praying.

Your Google Profile is Your Social Hub

Everyone Googles their own name, right?

That’s great that you’re doing this. You’re taking the first step of monitoring your Online Reputation. Before a company decides to do business with you or even to just reach out to you and say hello, they are Googling your name and your company name to see what they find.

Here’s a HOT tip that will help you and your Online Reputation: Be sure to go to:
http://google.com/profiles and create your FREE Google Profile.

Create a great first impression when people Google your name by creating  your Google profile. It’s your social hub.

Benefits of a Google Profile:

• If you have a common name, no one will ever be confused again because your photo and Google profile link show up as a search result.

• Use it as your “Social Network” headquarters: list all links to your Social Network profiles; your blog; your website; your products you sell, such as ecourses.

• Write an entertaining and informative biography in the “About” section so that you create a great first impression when people Google your name and visit your profile.

Side note: something kind of fun to do is to type “me” into Google’s search box after you’ve launched your Google profile. You’ll see your profile at the top of the page.

Part of your ongoing Online Reputation management is to simply keep creating positive links back to you. Then, IF anything negative should ever come up in the future, people can clearly see it’s an exception rather than the norm.

Ana Lydia Ochoa: Inspirational Latina PR Pro

Ana Lydia has been nationally recognized as a communications leader since establishing her agency, padma, in 2006. Padma was the first ethnic PR/marketing agency focused on reaching bilingual, acculturated US Hispanic consumers.  In 2007, Ana Lydia further established the agency as a communications leader with the addition of online and social media capabilities and multi-ethnic outreach capabilities reaching South Asians.  Today, Ana Lydia has secured a creative and entrepreneurial team to lead multicultural, non-traditional outreach strategies for a diverse roster of clients, including Americas United Bank, Corona Extra, Mervyn’s, Time Warner Cable, Macy*s, The Liver Foundation, to name a few.  Check out her website: padma media and marketing.  Follow Ana on Twitter. Ana graciously set aside time for this interview.

Where did you grow up and how did your upbringing and environment contribute to the person you are today?

I am the first born daughter to Mexican immigrant parents. I was born and mostly raised in the San Fernando Valley, Southern California. Although both of my parents worked early in my life, by the age of nine, and three siblings later, my mother stayed home and raised us – my father worked and was continually promoted at work.

During the school year we maintained a very strict routine at home of minimal television, classical music during dinner – always with the entire family – homework sessions with my parents, outdoor activities, reading and art. Although my family is highly educated and very successful by all accounts in both the US and Mexico, we were never allowed to rest in our laurels. We were given three choices: Go to college, go to college or go to college!

At home, we were raised speaking –perfect- Spanish and English outside the home. During the summer we vacationed in various regions of Mexico perfecting our Spanish, learning about the Mexican culture, traveling throughout the country and spending time with our extended family.

In my pre-teens, my parents uprooted the entire household and moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, where we attended the leading Catholic private school in the city. We lived in Guadalajara for close to five years and vacationed in the US after the ending of each school year.

By the time we returned to the US, I was in my last year of Junior High and had to quickly adjust to a new school only to leave it behind less than a year later. My high school education was only the means to enter college.

When I recount my story I can’t help but notice how I was never given the option to fail, do any less than great and appreciate the beauty of my Mexican heritage.

Who were your role models as you were growing up and how did they affect you?

Thankfully, TV was limited growing up – limiting childhood idols based on what the media portrayed. My parents discussed politics, art, music, business and family in our household. Our role models were real – they continue to be real. From my paternal grandparents, who would do anything for my dad and his siblings to go to school, to my maternal grandmother that proved that with ganas you could have a successful business, to my various aunts, uncles, cousins and twice-removed relatives that prove that everyone has equal opportunities to succeed – and lastly, my parents. They not only raised four college-educated children, but they showed us to aim high. Success is limitless.

At what point in life did you realize your inner strength and fortitude?

My parents never gave us an option to fail. Although strict and Catholic, I knew from a very young age that I could do anything I put my heart to – as long as I worked hard. As my mother constantly reminds me, “?Si otros pueden, tu porque no?”

Given the recent study done on U.S. Latina high school students’ drop-out rate of 41% , what’s your advice for Latina(o)/Hispanic students who are in high school or college? New Report Addresses Reasons for 41 Percent Dropout Rate Among Latina High School Students http://bit.ly/2aNrYz

I strongly believe that parents have the ability to help their children succeed in school. Depending on the school system or blaming children for not having ganas has more to do with how they are raised, and less to do with their peers. Parents need to get involved. If they aren’t, professional Latinos/Latinas need to get involved with our teens to work on curbing this horrible statistic.

What’s your advice for those who may have already dropped out of high school or college?

Don’t focus on your mistakes, work towards the future that you want and know you deserve. Nothing will be handed to you, you have it in you to make it happen. Trust yourself and believe that anything you want – anything – is possible with the right attitude.

Why did you launch your business?

After being laid off in late summer 2006 I began consulting to supplement my unemployment check. And, although I offered various jobs, most of them required me to move out of state. This was not an option being that my father had recently passed and during my job search my mother was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer.

As I continued to interview, my consulting practice grew and within a month I landed my first big project – leading PR efforts for the opening of California first Hispanic-owned business bank.

My projects varied, past co-workers and contacts continued to refer business, and in January 2007 I officially launched padma media and marketing.

What is your UVP (Uniqe Value Propisition)?

We focus on reaching bilingual, acculturated ethnic markets – people just like us! We know how to reach diverse markets, because WE ARE that market.

Describe your ideal client or project or give one or two case studies so that people can clearly understand how you’ve helped clients.

We service the marketing communication needs of Fortune 500 companies and non-profits with a focus on fashion, beauty, entertainment, food/restaurant and consumer products

What other services does your company provide?

We are a holistic agency, meaning, we present our clients with comprehensive plans that include diverse tools to best reach their intended target market. Those tools include public relations/publicity, social media outreach, relationship building, special event and marketing.

How does your Latina heritage help you achieve your goals?

Being Latina doesn’t make me better or less qualified. But, it does provide me with real life insight that I constantly tap into when creating plans for our clients.

What would you like to say to companies who are thinking of marketing to Latina(o)s/Hispanics but aren’t sure of what to do first?

Thank you! You will be pleasantly surprised to learn about the various options to reach target markets/niche consumers ready to learn about your product/service. You may also be excited to learn that you have options when hiring/contracting an agency to help you best reach your consumer outreach goals.

Although we all (may) have the same consumer goal, each agency has a different style, philosophy and motivation. Be open to interview and hire both small/boutique agencies as well as large/international firms.

What would you like people to remember about you after you’ve passed on (many, many years from now)?

It was all about the passion and the lack of fear in failing, whether in my personal or professional life.

Is Pepsi building its own social network?

Last week, Pepsi announced, that for the first time in 23 years, it would not be purchasing advertising during the 2010 televised Super Bowl.  The reason:  ”In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and marketing platform that will be less about a singular event and more about a movement,” Pepsi spokeswoman Nicole Bradley said.

This is a significant shift in the stratosphere of Social Media and brands.  Basically, Pepsi is through with throwing money into one-way, 30 second ads (view Pepsi’s 2009 Super Bowl commercial), even though those 30 seconds could potentially reach 95.4 million viewers (2009 Super Bowl audience).  I applaud Pepsi for making such a bold and wise move. Pepsi’s strategy is smart: “…be less about a singular event and more about a movement.”

That movement is happening with their “Refresh Everything” campaign. I believe Pepsi is building its own Social Network: The Pepsi Refresh Project. Launching in February of 2010, the site says “A new generation is refreshing the world. Check back soon to see how you can start tagging your best content and join the fray.” There’s a millennial flavor to the site, which is appealing to this age group.

Further evidence of Pepsi’s social networking is its Facebook fan page: check out the Pepsi Refresh Everything Facebook Fan page. Highly interactive, Pepsi asks fans to play Foursquare, submit videos, and other two-way activities with Pepsi donating to charities such as City Year, which is like the Peace Corps of cities (volunteers unite to give service to a city for a full year).

Imagine a world filled with brands that no longer talk one-way but instead,  help their “tribes” (communities of fans) by promoting them and interacting with them in highly visible platforms such as Facebook fan pages; interactive websites; YouTube videos; and many other ways, while at the same time, donating to charities that improve our world.

Now THAT’S a movement.

Create Your Best Web Site Ever: Follow A 3-Step Plan

If you had a retail store, you’d make sure your store was sparkling clean; your products were stocked and easy-to-reach; and you’d make sure all the aisles were navigate through, right? You’d do all this preparation before you advertised your grand opening, right? You’d take care of the details that would make your customers happy, like having plenty of properly trained/friendly staff; an easy check-out process and you’d also heavily promote the thing you wanted people to buy the most of, right?

Are you applying this same type of strategy and planning for your Web site?

The same concept applies to your Web site: before you make start bringing in a lot of traffic from the Web, you want to make sure your Web site is in tip-top shape and can successfully convert that traffic from “looky-lou’s” and “tire-kickers” into paying customers and raving fans. Unfortunately, many Web site owners, from the entrepreneur to the huge corporation, fail to grasp this concept and end up wasting thousands of dollars on a pretty Web site that doesn’t work.

Think of your Web site as a digital salesperson, greeting, informing and directing visitors to the “point of purchase.” The point of “purchase” can be for something other than a product or service; it could be to contact you; make a donation; to subscribe to your newsletter; to fill out your survey; to download your E-book or some other “buy-in”.

Your Web site can work for you like a whole team of properly trained people, only instead of an 8 hour shift, your site can work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and doesn’t need a lunch break.

How can your Web site work for you and convert visitors into customers just like a real live team of well-trained employees would do? It’s all in the planning. The pretty stuff comes later. If you want your Web site to work for you, you need to cook the ingredients in a certain order: prioritize the information architecture and copy writing over the design of the look-and-feel. The design is important but all too often Web site owners want to begin with the way it will look rather than the way it will sell.

Here are three important steps to take toward building a Web site that works:

Step One – Create a plan with strategy. Properly plan and execute how to help those potential customers coming into your Web site. Decide on who  your audience is and what calls-to-action they’ll need so you can make it simple for people to know what you want them to do. Decide on your strategy so you can get good results. Sounds simple but lots of people overlook this most important step. They rush the process instead of taking time to plan the most important part of their business.

Step Two – Wireframes: Just like a sculptor would create the wireframe before adding the clay, you should create the wireframe of your Web site pages before adding words, color and detail, which will later be shaped (written, designed and programmed) into a final form. You can do this yourself on paper: map out the goal of every page before you get your copy professionally written by a Web-experienced writer. Decide who you’re talking to (Who are your markets? What information will they need in order to make a decision to buy now?) and organize your information accordingly. Be sure to include a call-to-action on every page and an easy purchase process or easy way to contact you.  Knowing how to create a Web site that’s a marketing tool and not just a pretty thing to look at is crucial if you want your business or organization to succeed online.

Step Three – Your Web Design Must Avoid Clutter: empty space on the  Web page allows the visitor’s eyes to be drawn to what you really want them to see. If you clutter up your page, no one will know where to focus their eyes and mind. This includes your main navigation menu: try to have less than eight links to choose from and don’t make people figure out what your link names mean. Keep it simple.

Just as the retail store owner stocks her shelves and trains her staff before the grand opening of her store, you need to anticipate what your Web site visitors will need before they arrive at your site. Provide the information they need right away. Don’t rely on your navigation menu to guide them around your site–be sure to put text links in your copy to lead them, like taking them by the hand, up and down your “aisles” or in this case, your Web site pages. The thing you want them to buy or do or take action on should be featured so they can’t overlook it. Be authentic. Be trustworthy.

So there you have three important steps in creating your best Web site ever.  Leave me a comment if you have more questions about how to build effective Web sites and I’ll be happy to answer them.

Measure Your Sentiment with PeopleBrowsr Analytics

Mashable.com, the Social Media website that breaks hot news and keeps us all informed of Web-related topics, recently ran a post called How To Measure Social Media ROI .  The writer, Christina Warren, mentioned “Sentiment” as one of the things you should measure and analyze on your Social media. I wrote my post in response to theirs.

Measuring your “sentiment” with your Twitter friends is an interesting undertaking. Why would you want to measure such a thing? With a tracking and measuring tool, you can then improve your service and/or products you sell;  while, hand-in-hand, improve your Online Reputation. When people talk about you, in a positive way, that’s called “buzz.” When there’s “buzz” about you and your company, usually your business is doing well. How can it not? With so many conversations in the Twittersphere, Facebook and elsewhere about you, you must be doing something right–right? Yes.

Now you can easily measure the sentiment of tweets about you by using Peoplebrowsr’s Analytics. Disclosure: I am a Peoplebrowsr coach. I became one because I kept raving about how great it is for so many things in the world of Social Networking, that PB (as we affectionately call it) asked me if I’d like to be part of the team. So, yes, I evangelicize about PB quite a bit.

Here’s a screenshot of my sentiment in Twitter, for past 30 days, as measured by  Peoplebrowsr’s Analytics:

Compare mine to the almighty Queen of Social Networking: Mari Smith (@MariSmith) who has 51,467 followers and is one of the kindest people I know:

Here are two more comparisons…the top image shows  Mari Smith’s Sentiment Count  and below that, is my own:

Interesting how big the “neutrality” is:

Now get going and start measuring
Go there now and do your own comparisons so you can have a benchmark. Then determine what you need to do to improve and increase positive sentiment. Then use PeopleBrowsr’s Analytics to measure again, so you have a before and after measurement.   Please comment and tell me what you think of this tool and what you think of measuring such a thing as “sentiment.”