Strategic Social Media Marketing 2-day Workshop Finally Launched!

When I first launched the CEPSM social media marketing workshop in April, 2008, I really had no idea that it would garner such a positive response. In fact, we quickly stopped going through the logistical hassle of organizing public workshops since there was more than enough demand for private ones (organizations inviting me in). CEPSM was never meant to be solely in the workshop business, but this way all logistical items were taken care of by the client. However, over the last year, CEPSM has been getting numerous requests from individuals in the public and non-profit sectors to once again offer a social media marketing workshop that is open to the public. Well guess what, we listened.

To solve our logistical dilemma , we decided to partner with an organization that has been conducting workshops successfully for decades, The Centre of Excellence for Communications. Yes, I know it’s ironic that we happen to share similar names, however don’t let that confuse you. The CEC’s core business is workshops, whereas CEPSM’s core business is the consulting side (although training is part of our consulting process). I’ll stop confusing you though. The bottom line is this, on November 25-26, 2009 CEPSM/CEC are jointly launching the 2-day Social Media Strategies for the Public Sector workshop. The intent is to offer this workshop in major cities across Canada for the first year and then see how it evolves from there.

Those of you familiar with my 1-day workshop will notice the switch to 2-days. I wanted to change things up a bit and add a hands-on session where each participant can get their hands dirty by actually using all of the tools I introduce during Day 1.  Further still, we will be using a live Google Doc to fill out certain sections of the workbook collaboratively.I like to practice what I preach as much as I possibly can. This is a great opportunity for me to do so.

For those of you interested in receiving this training as part of a University Certificate, be sure to see if our Professional Certificate in Public Sector Marketing course offered through Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business is a right fit for you. I’m really looking forward to being part of the instructional team this year!

Ok then, if you have any questions whatsoever, fire me an email or give me a call. Also, to stay up to date on my speaking schedule visit the Upcoming Speaking Engagements page on my blog. And yes, we will still be offering our private workshops for those interested. This is not meant to replace them.

How social media can bring strategic marketing thinking into government

It’s been almost 4 years since we started the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing (CEPSM) . We set forth a very clear mission: To advance the marketing discipline in the public sector. How have we gone about doing this? Through our core functions of speaking, training and consulting.

The definition

Here’s how I like to simplify the marketing definition, whenever anyone asks: “A strategic process and set of tools wrapped in a philosophy for helping an organization do what it wants to do.”

People forget that marketing is first and foremost a process that helps organizations attain their objectives as effectively and efficiently as possible. It follows  a specific process and various frameworks (such as the 4P’s) that have been developed over many decades.

Why did we start CEPSM ?

• Marketing is one of  the most misunderstood functions in the public sector, often confused with “promotion” and “marketing communications”.
• A major primary research study on The State of Marketing in the Public and Non-Profit Sectors reinforced our beliefs early on.
• There is confusion between the “marketing” function and the “communications” function. In some cases the two are falsely seen as the same thing.
• There is a very evident lack of marketing expertise within the government environment. People are being put into senior “marketing” positions having never taken a single marketing course in their lives, let alone attained a business degree.
• Marketing is perceived as an “art” with no attention being paid to the “science” side. Big mistake.

What has changed?

Very little so far. Having worked with over 50 government clients I can say there is still a tremendous issue with people working in silos and not sharing experiences with each other, thus repeating the same mistakes. Tactics are still being developed without any strategies to guide them. Something needs to be done at a more holistic level.

Every year about 15-20 people go through our Professional Certificate in Public Sector and Non-Profit Marketing (through Carleton University). This course (or something equivalent) should be a mandatory prerequisite for anyone taking on a “marketing” position in government, or a “communications” position that has marketing elements to it. The problem is that people think marketing is some “fluffy” position that is responsible for glossy brochures and tv ads. As a result, any kind of formal training is often ignored. This is especially frustrating for people that actually have marketing/business degrees and are put into these positions surrounded by people (often their bosses) who don’t (I have met plenty).

What keeps me believing?

I have recently noticed an interesting rise in thirst for strategic marketing thinking in government. The neat thing is that most people don’t know that they’re asking for it , albeit indirectly. I’m referring to the thirst for my niche, i.e. anything to do with web 2.0, gov 2.0, social media, etc…

When it comes to social media marketing, there is a lot more interest than pure old “marketing”. Thanks to this, I have been invited to numerous senior management speaking engagements , conference presentations, and workshop courses. The  interesting part is that what I teach in my social media marketing workshops, is essentially  “marketing 101″ with a modern twist that takes into account the necessary organizational culture change that is needed to integrate social media  into an organizational strategy. Therefore I am able to put forth basic marketing principles and get people thinking using the strategic mindset that is “marketing”.

My conclusion from all of this….

…the “sexiness” of social media is a great opportunity to push forward “strategic thinking” and the “marketing process” in government! Especially since social media is something that very few people understand, but almost all want to participate in. Of course there are elements of the marketing process that social media has re-defined (e.g. marketing research can be crowd-sourced, niche audiences can be easily found, feedback can be collaborative, etc…) but the importance of  having a “strategy before tactics” will stand the test of time.

Quick MARCOM 2009 Debrief

It has already been almost 3 weeks since MARCOM 2009 took place at the Pearson Convention Centre in Toronto. Surely enough, the last 3 weeks have been so busy that I never got a chance to share my experience with you. Here’s a quick summary.

What is MARCOM 2009?

Basically the only marketing conference that is dedicated solely to marketing professionals working in the public and/or non-profit sectors. It is run by a sister company of CEPSM (our organization) called CMG Canada.

Why did I attend?

Besides the fact that I was chosen to speak and thus had to attend, I really love how niche of a conference MARCOM is and how much subsequent value I always receive. Most importantly however, I love surrounding myself with people that are passionate towards their jobs. The vast majority of private sector marketing conferences are about marketing product/service “X” whereas MARCOM brings together people that use marketing to improve such initiatives as classroom literacy,  public transportation,  spousal abuse, foreign credential recognition, etc…

What did I think of the speakers?

This year the line-up of speakers was outstanding. I was able to attend the following:

Arlene Dickinson (Venture Communications/Dragon’s Den) –> How can not-for-profit and public sector marketing get the respect it deserves?

• Brilliant marketing mind
• Emphasized “strategy before tactics”, which is what I live by.

Michael Cleland (City of Mississauga) & Rupen Seonie (Environics Analytics) –> Moving beyond demographics to psychographic segmentation

• If you’re a marketer and you haven’t heard of PRISM C2 yet, get on it. It’s the most comprehensive segmentation of the Canadian population, period.
• If you have a database of your target audience (with postal codes), then you can overlay the PRISM C2 clusters and find out crucial psychographic info.

Wayne Carrigan (ThinData) & Jim Jeang (Canadian Blood Services) –> Email and social media: natural allies

• While I was skeptical at first as to what social media has to do with email, I did end up enjoying this presentation due to Wayne’s thorough knowledge of the email industry.
• Jim spoke to the “tactical” side of social media , focusing on the tools he used within CBS as opposed to more strategic elements I like to hear (i.e. determining the best ways to meet objectives and desired outcomes before jumping into tactics). That being said, it is always refreshing to hear about social media initiatives within government that have actually been implemented. I will be adding this to the Gov 2.0 Wiki for sure.
• Overall, both speakers were well prepared and placed a strong emphasis on measurement, which is always a good thing.
• Some interesting stats:
  • On average Canadians receive 130 pieces of SPAM per week
  • 2005–> mass email deployments
  • 2006–> email versions deployed to specific segments
  • 2008–> 1:1 dynamic deployment
  • Great CBS initiative: www.thankyourdonor.ca

Rahaf Harfoush (Obama New Media Team/World Economic Forum) –> Yes we did: Strategic insights from the campaign that changed history

• Rahaf gave a brilliant behind the scenes overview as to day to day life at Obama campaign headquarters and the many all-nighters that lead to such a tremendous victory.
• Be sure to check out the Barack Obama and White House websites.

Louise Clements (Facebook) –> Facing Facebook today: How to use Facebook to stay ahead of the game

• Louise has an extensive private-sector background in sales and has just been recruited by Facebook to lead the  Toronto office. She gave an excellent overview of the re-vamped Facebook social advertising platform (adverts), which to my surprise, few people even knew existed.

Brian Thwaits (Brainspeaker Inc.) –> Engage your brain!

• I highly recommend Brian’s new book, “The Big Learn” ,to anyone interested in the latest theories and studies surrounding left vs. right brain thinking. Great closing keynote!

Overall thoughts

Besides listening to speakers, I very much enjoyed presenting myself. I conducted a full-day “social media 101″ pre-conference workshop followed by a more advanced “social media research tools” presentation during the actual conference. For the latter, I paired up with Nick Charney from CPS Renewal who did a wonderful job tying everything in to a government work environment. I also had a chance to host two roundtable discussions, one on “government 3.0″ and one on “attaining senior management buy-in for social media engagement”. Both turned into rich discussions during which I learned quite a bit myself.

To sum up, I will definitely be coming back next year.