marketing & social media strategist focused primarily on helping public sector organizations achieve their objectives more efficiently and effectively
international speaker and workshop facilitator on the topics of strategic marketing, modern communications, social media engagement and government 2.0
Public Sector Marketing 2.0 - Fresh insights on government, association, and non-profit marketing in a Web 2.0 world
Here’s the 3rd installment of my favourite video series (i.e “Did You Know”) illustrating the changing media landscape. No explanation necessary, just watch the video and enjoy.
The original Did You Know 3.0 video can be watched here.
I asked a senior government communications employee for their communications objectives the other day. Their response was ” to be on the cover of The Globe & Mail” (our national Canadian newspaper). A few weeks ago another client gave me a similar response: “To have an article written about us in the Ottawa Citizen” (our nation’s capital newspaper). When I asked them about their digital presence, they replied that they already have a website (which by the way, appeared on the 8th Google search result page for the most important key phrase relating to their initiative) .
This is usually the time that I take a deep breath…
Forgetting the fact that news of declining newspaper readership is all over newspapers themselves, I begin to wonder at moments like this if certain communications people have ever read a single magazine/publication/journal/article/blog from their industry. If they did, they would know that a few things have changed.
Let’s focus on the most important item…
People use search engines to find information (92% of the online population here in Canada). In fact, over 2 Billion searches are performed on Google each day. You now have access to tools that can tell you how and when people are searching (e.g. Google Insights for Search).
So what?
Your number one goal should be to ensure that people looking for information regarding your initiative can find you. And not just find your website, but rather find your “digital presence”.
What am I talking about?
If you’re not engaged in the discussion surrounding your initiative on at least one other relevant 2-way channel (i.e. blog, twitter, social network, photo/video sharing site, etc…), then you may as well not be present at all. Being on the cover of Globe & Mail will get you a big hit of traffic on that particular day, however it will quickly fade into oblivion as you have no place to sustain the discussion.
A solid digital presence will ensure that upon searching for relevant keywords, people will notice that your various web properties dominate the first few pages of Google, and thus you will easily be able to funnel in the majority of your target audience.
Need an example? Type my name “Mike Kujawski” into Google. Rather than having only my website show up, you’ll notice that Google brings up my various other web properties such as Slideshare, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube in addition to thousands of places that I have contributed content to. On all of these, I have content relating to my niche. I have also made sure to have at least a few listings on the first page of results for terms such as “government 2.0″, “public sector marketing” and ” social media in government”. The best part is that I can measure the quality of traffic coming in via each search term and closely monitor their actions (using Google Analytics).
This is how you create a sustainable holistic web presence. Why isn’t this a primary goal for everyone involved in communications?
Whenever I give a workshop relating to social media, I often ask the following question when talking about social networks: “How many of you are currently on LinkedIn?”
In most cases about 60% of the people in the room put up their hand. I then ask those same people: ” How many of you have ever actually received any value from being on LinkedIn”?
One hand usually stays up.
What people tend to forget is that in most cases you’re not going to “receive” value simply upon signing up. This applies to all social media tools/applications. You need to be willing to put in some work (i.e. “give”) in order to receive. The truth is, the majority of people couldn’t be bothered and thus never end up using their accounts.
It is for those people that I want to provide the following simple use for LinkedIn, which involves very little time investment. It’s often overlooked and yet it’s right there front and centre. Basically, by following these steps you can find and connect with almost any person, from any industry in any city. The bigger your network, the better it works (concept of 3 degrees of separation).
This sets into motion an automatic message that will be sent to the connector from your immediate network as well as the end person that you are trying to reach. The ball is thus in their court and you will receive an answer 99.9% of the time. Just remember to limit your first degree connections to people that you have either personally met, done business with, or at least chatted via phone.
Why does this work?
Simple: When people see an introduction from a familiar contact, they feel obliged to respond. Don’t forget, 50 million users wouldn’t have signed up if this stuff didn’t work.
Have a look at my “Quick Tip” presentation below , which explains this exercise in visual form.
