The situation is complex.  Initially, it might seem harsh that people are enjoying their vacations while so many suffer. However, the blog points out that they are delivering relief supplies, contributing to the local economy of vendors, and $1 million plus all profits from visiting the area will be donated to humanitarian efforts. They have given information on supporting relief efforts, as well. Please consider making a donation to their recommended charity, Food for the Poor.

The Press Reports the Story

CNN reports on this issue in their article, Haiti cruise stops draw ire, support.

Blogs and message boards have been full of outrage and disgust at the idea of tourists frolicking in the sun while bodies pile up in Port-au-Prince and quake survivors struggle to stay alive. …

In a statement issued after the earthquake, the United Nations World Tourism Organization also weighed in, saying that “tourism can become a useful instrument for the necessary reconstruction process in Haiti.”

History shows other examples of the importance of tourism to devastated areas: New York inviting visitors after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and New Orleans, Louisiana, appealing for tourist dollars after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The Public Weighs in with Comments

The blog allows people to voice their opinion either way, including support from commenters outside the company:

POSITIVE: I just wanted to mention that through my travels with Royal Caribbean, I have learned that quite a few of the islands in the Caribbean come to rely on the passengers of your cruise ships for an income.

NEGATIVE: I just heard you on NPR. You did yourself NO favors. The interview was a complete disaster. … My burning question, I had through your interview was why not drop your passengers off at some alternative and use the “whole” ship — not just 4o pallets — and provide it as a hospital ship or a supply ship == and why does everything have to be a tit for tat — why do you need to have the humanitarian aid be a “commercial” venture. Unbelievable. I know this posting wont see the light of day, but I hope that Mr Goldstein will read this and next time choose just to be silent and just do the right thing.

Our Thoughts

Social Media Works refrains from passing judgment either way, but we do applaud the company for using their blog to address the concern.  Royal Caribbean has made an excellent use of Social Media by not ignoring the social dialog that was buzzing across the internet.

All businesses should realize that at any time they might be affected by an unexpected situation that they will need to address.  By having the lines of PR open ahead of time, your company will be able to move swiftly to address it.

The Back Story of a “Terrorist” Cub Scout

Mikey Hicks

Eight-year-old Mikey Hicks has been given extra security screening at the airport for most of his life. The airlines says he’s on the TSA’s “Watch List”. The TSA eight-year-old’s aren’t on a watch list.

After Mikey’s story got a LOT of news & press from The New York Times and CBS, it gained traction on Social Media sites because people were outraged that this poor child was being patted down time & again. His parents set up a Facebook Fan Page, Get Mikey OFF “The List”, to increase awareness so the problem could be resolved. I had heard the story and joined the Fan Page last Saturday.

The TSA has an official employee, Bob “Blogger Bob” Burns that writes on behalf on the agency. He published a blog post addressing the story.  Instead of doing what a good PR agent should do, and calm things down, he poured fuel on the situation.

It’s inevitable that every several months or so, some cute kid gets their mug posted on a major news publication with a headline reading something like: “Does this look like a terrorist to you?” Anything involving kids or cats gets tons of mileage and everybody starts tweeting and retweeting that there’s an 8 year old on the no fly list.

There are no children on the No Fly or Selectee lists.

What happens is the child’s name is a match or similar match to an actual individual on the No Fly or Selectee Watch List.

He goes on to address how the non-existent problem will be fixed by mid-2010.

Blogger Bob was fully aware of the problem & pain of this family, because he was a FAN of the Facebook Fan Page!  He took time to be commenting on the thread discussing how upset and outraged people were over this blog post, and proudly said he approved all comments on the official TSA page.  He did not however, actually RESPOND to any comments on the blog, and ignored any direct questions from the public on the Fan Page.

Don’t Be Like Bob: Lessons for the Rest of Us

Mistakes Happen. So Admit It and Start Moving On.

When they do, the other party first wants to know you understand the pain they are feeling. The next thing is they want their problem fixed.  NOW.

I understand that TECHNICALLY there is no 8-year-old on the list.  But that doesn’t matter because there is a problem going on.  A technical excuse is NOT good enough.

Be Respectful

Starting a public apology by comparing a victim to a cat is not a good way to win over the other party.  Making light of anyone’s pain, whether real or imagined, is not going to open the lines of communication.

Don’t get snarky. If you are being paid by American tax dollars, then you better be sure you are speaking on behalf of your agency and being respectful to the public.  Same thing if you work for a private corporation, but even more so if you are a public representative.

Know Your Role in the Situation

If you are not the one to do anything about it, since you offered the apology, then you now have an obligation to help them fix it if you want a resolution. Recognize the problem then take the next step towards getting it resolved. Be their personal connection to a faceless agency or corporation.

Respond to Comments

Blogger Bob was so proud of himself for taking time ON A SATURDAY to approve comments on the TSA blog. At first, I thought that was great that he was looking into it. But then I realized:

• If he didn’t think this was an actual PR problem, why would he take the time to use his personal Facebook profile to comment on the situation outside of work time?
• How come he’s been back on the clock and has just approved, but not commented on, any of the new responses?
• Why should he get bonus points for fixing a problem he escalated?

The purpose of comments is to START A DIALOG to find a resolution. So if you aren’t going to respond, don’t even bother to waste your time.

Or in this case, tax dollars.

Time To Play TSA  & Blogger Bob Off, Fatso!

Just because Blogger Bob is snarky doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy my favorite piano playing cat meme.

Share Your Thoughts: This Family Needs Support

Please take the time to join the Facebook Fan Page, Get Mikey OFF “The List”, or let TSA know how you feel on their blog! Or sound off in the comments!

The late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat is up for grabs in a surprisingly close race in Massachusetts that could imperil President Obama’s agenda. This is going to be an interesting race to watch today, not in the election polls but on the Social Networking sites.

I’ll be checking in with how many followers / friends each party gains:

Republican Scott Brown – Facebook Fan Page

• 1:30 pm EST on 01/18/10: 81,306 fans
• 10:34pm EST on 01/18/10: 90,710 fans
• 5:20pm EST on 01/19/10: 102,221 fans

Republican Scott Brown – Twitter

• 1:30pm EST on 01/18/10: 10,566 followers
• 10:34pm EST on 01/18/10: 11,268 followers

Democrat Martha Coakley – Facebook Fan Page

• 1:30pm EST on 01/18/10: 15,165 fans
• 10:34pm EST on 01/18/10: 16,775 fans
• 5:20pm EST on 01/19/10: 18,368 fans

Democrat Martha Coakley – Twitter

• 1:30pm EST on 01/18/10: 3,601 followers
• 1:30pm EST on 01/18/10: 3,823 followers

By contrast, Team Coco is up to 357,586 413,961 fans and held rallies in LA, New York, Seattle & Chicago.

Social Media provides a very quick, easy and inexpensive way to get a message out to the masses and to share those ideas with your friends.  The point of every political campaign to spread your message to gain a collective of followers.  The Brown campaign gets this, while Coakley’s seems to playing an outdated game:

Last Friday, CNN asked the Coakley campaign why they were not running any Google ads, compared to the Brown campaign which has shown an aggressive strategy for advertising on the popular search engine. Campaign spokesperson Alex Zaroulis responded in an e-mail that they were focusing on social networks: “We are running an aggressive online campaign – from the blogosphere to e-mail to facebook and twitter.”

Both parties seem to be actively updating today… but the question is, when did they each start.  If Martha Coakley ignored this channel at the start, it seems she lost valuable time and followers.

Think about this for your poltical campaign or business… when is the tipping point when it’s too late to catch up?  Can you afford to wait until that point?

So What Does This Mean on a Local Level?

Most people would agree that the Obama campaign had a HUGE boost because of Social Media.  So it’s surprising to me that this has not yet trickled down to the state or local level.  Just today I was asked by a local politician about the pros & cons of using blogging & social networking sites.

My first suggestion was to create a Facebook Fan Page. The initial objection from a person involved with the campaign was that he did not think they would max out the 5,000 connections on a Personal Profile. But the county has over 200,000 residents.  Just looking at the numbers, it makes sense to open up a communication channel that can grow to support a community of that size.

But even more important is what open communication channels can mean, regardless of what political party you are in. While gathering my research, I inquired with a local family about how they were interacting with their County Executive.  Their response:

“We probably interact with [The County Executive] more because of his presence on Facebook – he makes it clear he wants to hear from his community. I think it’s also important to add that neither my husband nor I voted for him and actively campaigned against him. But, because of his outward presence and quick ability to communicate back with people I might actually vote to re-elect him in a couple of years. I’m pretty sure that without Facebook, I couldn’t say that about him.”

I’ll be following up tomorrow with more specific tips for politicians.

First of all, in full disclosure, I’m a HUGE Conan fan myself.  Yesterday afternoon I changed my personal Facebook photo to my own tacky tribute to Conan and Andy and I started tweeting out my dissatisfaction at NBC and cheered Conan’s classy statement.

As of 5:05pm EST on 01/13/10, a protest “I’m With Coco” Facebook Fan Page is averaging 135 new members PER MINUTE.  That’s over 5363 new fans during the time it took me to write a blog post.  27,758 and counting. The beautiful image on the right is being shared in a sign of solidarity.

UPDATE 01/14/10:  107,698 fans at 5:28pm EST

UPDATE 01/18/10: 357,586 fans at 10:33pm EST

In contrast, the NBC fan page has 11,492 fans.

Yesterday and today, “Team Conan“ was trending on Twitter. Multiple “Twitter Ribbons” added a badge to their profile picture and tweeted out support messages. I have to wonder if the Twitter Tracker bird is going to blow up these tweets, or if it will finally be happy.

Online polls show support for Conan at over 80%, while 88% support a move to Fox. Petitions allowed users to pledge their support.

Team Jay does not seem to be making much of an impact.  Maybe that’s because his audience tends to be older.  This is also an important point, because which target audience is more important to advertisers?  It’s been reported that Conan’s audience is 11 years younger than Letterman’s, and obviously more vocal on Social Media.

In a time when people BUY due to personal recommendations, this shows Conan’s audience has great influence on their friends.

How else could these topics trended so quickly if people were not responding to their friend’s actions? This audience doesn’t just respond to a TV ad, they respond to the brand and feeling of a product, person or network.  And right now, the feeling about the peacock is pretty terrible. The impact on NBC is going to linger around a lot longer than viewers during a 1 hour show.

The question remains, are the advertisers and network executives listening?

From a business standpoint, this whole thing started because of lack of eyeballs and adverstising money.  People are watching now.  I’m wondering if the large corporate machine behind all of this was prepared for this sort of protest.  Are they listening or even prepared to rise up? If not, then who are they making programming choices for? Who does they think spends money with their advertisers?

Personally, I hope they listen, because I can’t imagine late night without “In the Year 3000“, Pierre Bernard Jr’s “Recliner of Rage” and Conan’s string dance.

Go Team Coco!

Stay tuned… I’ll address the branding impact of all of this in another post. Right now, I’m too excited watching the protests unfold.

Please share your thoughts!

One Voice Can Make a Difference

Thank you, Charles for your brilliant message, creative thinking and understanding the power of Social Media!

Thank you for being an unexpected voice in the crowd — and I mean that as the best possible compliment. At first, I too, did not want to participate.  And I didn’t really think about the FULL IMPACT of this message until watching the above.  And my family has been deeply touched by breast cancer and other types of cancer.  Mashable had just thought of it as “the New 25 Things on Facebook“. The Washington Post was left wondering who was behind it all. So now how do you feel? Still think it’s silly?

So What’s Your Cause?

The world is listening, so go spread your message.

My “cause” is getting the word out that the way people communicate globally has changed. And it’s easy to use and fast to get your message out. I take it very seriously that building up that global infrastructure is going to help be the foundation for change in this world.  That will allow everyone to have a voice. I’m lucky that I have always been very vocal (and those of me that know me personally know that is true), but I have thought about the many, many people in the world that do not have that voice.

Yes, I talk about this from a business perspective, but I also know the REAL POWER is in messages like the ones from Charles.  Every single thing I talk about can be used personally, and I hope it will be. Obama challenged us all to CHANGE and he did it using Social Media, so let’s all rise up to that challenge.

I do projects for non-profits that I don’t take public credit for because I know how important it is to share that information on the web.  I am happy that I can take even portion of my business talent and help another human being.  Sharing a great message with the world to help ONE PERSON is huge. Now multiply that.

I’d love to hear about the messages you care about or how you have used your business skills for personal good!

Social Media First, then Mainstream Media

I am constantly advocating the use of Social Media as a way for non-profits to get their messages out.

Recently I saw a very huge missed opportunity that could have led to free publicity and increased awareness and donations for their cause, simply because the Social Media channels were not being used. This personally upset me because I know that had an impact on people’s lives beyond the bottom line of the business.  So I’m inspired that Charles “gets it” now and made such an important message spread first to Facebook, then to mainstream media. His message won’t be the last, and everyone should wake up and know that the social media channels ARE where the conversation is happening, and the traditional media is just reporting on it.  So where do you want to be?  In the conversation, or getting it relayed to you like a game of telephone?

More from The Charles Burch Breast Cancer Foundation™

On Wednesday January 6,2010 Nobody payed Attention & Then Over Night The Word Was Spreaded On Thursday January 7,2010 Everybody Knew What Was Going On The Word Spreaded To Twitter,Myspace,Bebo & All Over The Internet I Know You Was Scratching Your Head & Raising Your Eye Brow’s & Was Wondering What Was Going On Facebook & Was Wondering Why You Was Seeing All Of Your Friend’s Putting The Color’s Of Their Bra In Their Facebook Status Let Me Say This The Charles Burch Breast Cancer Foundation™ Started This Campaign To Bring More Awareness To Breast Cancer IT GOT YOUR ATTENTION DIDN’T IT Because Alot Of People DIDN’t Care So WE Had To Give Everybody A Wake Up Call And A Eye Opener So I Sent Alot Of My Female Friend’s A Facebook Message And Asked Them NICELY Can They Help Me & MY FOUNDATION Start Up A New Movement And All Of Them Replied Yes So Me & MY Good Friend Wrote Out A Catchy Eye Opener MESSAGE That Read

“Write the color of your bra as your status, just the color, nothing else!! Copy this and pass it on to all girls/Females …… NO MEN!! This will be fun to see how it spreads, and we are leaving the men wondering why all females just have a color as their status!! Let’s have fun supporting breast cancer!!! xoxox

All of my Female Friend’s on my facebook list forwarded this message to all of their friend’s & family BY E-MAIL TWITTER,FACEBOOK,MYSPACE,ALL OVER BY WORD OF MOUTH THE WORD TRAVELED FARTHER THEN I HAVE EVEN BEEN ALL OF THEM HAD I’M SO HAPPY THAT EVERYBODY HAD copy & paste THIS TO EVERYBODY IT HAS RAISED ALOT OF ATTENTION & EVEN HAS BROUGHT MORE ATTENTION TO THE BRA BUSSINESS
Over the last couple years i HAD noticed a downhill in people caring about breast cancer awareness so i said to myself i have to help bring more awareness to breast cancer and Boy did it bring more awareness to the The Internet Today i seen how the Media Twist Thing’s Up
This Bra color status Did Not Start or origninate Out In No Detroit Or No Where Else I Started this movement for the memory of my aunt and for my sister who is now a breast cancer survivor People can love me or people can hate but i brought alot of awareness back to breast cancer i didnt do this for money i didnt do this for fame i did this for all the people who passed away to breast cancer open your eyes up the whole purpose of the BRA COLOR WAS TO BRING MORE AWARENESS TO BREAST CANCER AND IF THE LADIES COULD POST THE COLOR OF THEIR BRA AS A FACEBOOK STATUS THEN THEY COULD LOOK DOWN AND DO A SELF CHECK BREAST EXAM AND CHECK FOR LUMPS I WANT TO PERSONALLY SAY THANK YOU TO EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD

MESSAGE TO ALL THE MEN: THIS WAS SUPPOSE TO BE A EYE OPENER TO US AS MEN I KNOW IT STARTED OUT LIKE A SECRET HIDDEN FROM THE MEN BUT THAT WAS THE WHOLE PURPOSE SO THE MEN COULD BE NOISEY AND SEE WHAT WAS GOING ON WHY THEY GIRLFRIEND & ALL OF THEIR FEMALE FRIENDS IS JUST POSTING A COLOR AS THEIR FACEBOOK STATUS & WE ALL KNOW THAT MEN CAN ALSO GET BREAST CANCER AND SINCE ALOT OF MEN ARE SO OVER PROTECTIVE OF THEIR WOMEN WE WANTED TO FOCUS ON THE WOMEN FIRST TO POST THIS STATUS BECAUSE ALL THE MEN WOULD HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO PAY ATTENTION

THANK YOU TO ALL THE WOMEN WHO PARTICIPATED IN THIS STATUS MOVEMENT SEE I TOLD YOU THE WORD OF MOUTH IS NOT DEAD WE CAN DO ANYTHING THAT WE PUT OUR MIND TO AS LONG AS YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND ALWAY’S LOVE YOURSELF

Follow The Global Breast Cancer Cause
The Charles Burch Breast Cancer Foundation™
On Twitter Right Now @ http://www.twitter.com/thecbbcf

Become A Fan Of
The Charles Burch Breast Cancer Foundation™
Right Now On Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/cbbcf

Add B.U.R.C.H.
As A Friend On Facebook Right Now @
►http://www.facebook.com/cbbcf

Reprinted from Sean Cohen  (AWeber) 

Confirmed opt-in as defined by SpamHaus, who is one of the most respected anti spam organizations in the world: 

Known as “COI” in the legitimate bulk email industry, also known as “Confirmed Opt-in”, “Verified Opt-in” or sometimes “Double Opt-in”. 

With Closed-Loop Opt-in the Recipient has verifiably confirmed permission for the address to be included on the specific mailing list, by confirming (responding to) the list subscription request verification. This is the standard practice for all responsible Internet mailing lists, it ensures users are properly subscribed, from a working address, and with the address owner’s consent. 

In the event of “spam” accusation: 

The Bulk Email Sender is fully and legally protected because the reply to the Subscription Confirmation Request received back from the recipient proves that the recipient did in fact opt-in and grant verifiable consent for the mailings. 

Source:Spamhaus Website

Numerous myths have circulated regarding confirmed opt-in and its effects. There are many misconceptions out there, and we’d like to help clear those up. 

Myth 1: My List Size Will Decrease Because Of Confirmed Opt-In.

Some addresses entered into your form will not confirm — that much is true. The percentage of addresses that don’t confirm depends on many factors, including the quality of your traffic and how effective your thank-you page, confirmation message and incentive for confirming are. 

Percentages aside, there are compelling reasons that having fewer addresses on your list is a good thing. 

Sometimes Less is Better

I know. You may be asking, “How can a decreased list size be a good thing?” Well, let’s consider: 

This means that of your total list size you can cut that by 5-20% because these email addresses are simply dead. Remember these are not temporary undeliverable but permanent dead addresses. 

Now, add on the bogus and malicious sign ups that undoubtedly will happen. For example, someone comes to your website and decides to put in bob@aol.com. Well, bob@aol.com was once a real email address and because you were not using confirmed opt-in you are now classified as an unintentional spammer. 

A recent study by MarketingSherpa and KnowledgeStorm found that only 68% of users always enter a valid email address. 

So, nearly a third of respondents knowingly enter bogus email addresses. 

- Source 

ISPs do not differentiate between unintentional spammers or actual spammers. The potential for you to be blocked or even worse, blacklisted, remains the same. 

Myth 2: My Mailing List Is Different! I Don’t Need Confirmed Opt-In.

Let’s be clear, confirmed opt-in is for all businesses, plain and simple. Anyone collecting subscribers and in turn sending email needs to confirm that those people intended to sign up to your mailing list and want to receive your email. 

In this age of email regulations and massive volumes of spam email, deliverability can be an issue. Why increase your chances of not getting delivered by putting yourself at risk. 

Myth 3: No One Else Uses Confirmed Opt-In. Why Should I?

This is simply not accurate. Our own campaigns here at AWeber use confirmed opt-in for all email marketing activities. When someone signs up for a Test Drive of AWeber, they must confirm. 

After setting up an account, if they want to receive our customer training email course, they must confirm. The same goes for our affiliates and their email training. Even when someone subscribes to our blog, they must confirm. 

Ok, but AWeber must practice what they preach, who else?

CNN	Microsoft
Oprah, CNet	bellagio.com
IRS.gov	weather.com
ign.com	maxim.com
tgifridays.com	olivegarden.com
pbs.org	visitpa.com
Whitehouse.gov

Honestly, if they can’t click a link then you probably should be marketing your business offline. If someone can find your website online I guarantee they can click a link. 

Myth 5: My Sales Will Decrease Because Of Confirmed Opt-In.

Have you tested this assumption? The answer is always, “No, but I just assume” or “No, my colleague told me it would hurt sales”. 

It’s best not to assume anything, but rather to seek out your own answers by testing and observing your own campaigns. We have found from our own testing that while the raw number of email addresses on our list declined when we switched to confirmed opt-in, sales did not. 

This means that the people who did confirm were the ones that truly wanted the information that they had to offer and the ones that didn’t were not left to bloat the mailing list. 

Grow Your Business Without Risk

Will your results be exactly the same as AWeber or even anyone else? This can only be determined by proper testing and measuring. 

Use confirmed opt-in as an opportunity to make sure that your lists are 100% clean and that you know without a doubt that 100% of the people receiving your mail have specifically requested it themselves. 

Spend your time and energy building your business with subscribers who want to hear from you rather than dealing with issues created by people who don’t want to hear from you. 

Reprinted from  Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)

Your web business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person’s need for information quickly!

But, after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information?

If you are like most Internet marketers, you don’t.

When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him.

Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn’t receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere.

Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?

Following up with leads is more than just a process – it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don’t follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process.

Consistent follow up gets results!

When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company’s latest news as a follow up piece.

I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn’t a very good follow up method. Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?

• The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have “big news”.
• List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you’ve just moved your headquarters?
• List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.

What follow up method really works?

Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.

First, you’ll need to develop your follow up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!

Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.

The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately!

Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is to high, the product isn’t the right color or doesn’t have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.)

The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up!

Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions!

Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors’. You will make the sale!

Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart.

Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn’t have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up – don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?

Social Media Works invites you to a FREE Seminar on December 5-6 at the Columbia MD Hilton. Linda Schenk will be presenting on Using Social Media for Your Business.  Learn great tips for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Blogging. This information, combined with the Sales and Marketing expertise from the other speakers, is critical knowledge to end 2009 and begin planning for 2010. Please join us by registering today!

Saturday, December 5-6, 2009 – 9:00 am – 4:00 pm (Both Days)

Hilton Columbia
5485 Twin Knolls Road
Columbia, MD 21045
410-997-1060

Amazing Guest Speakers

• Jo Golden – Social Media
• Cedrick Harris – Marketing
• Tracey Holinka – Social Media
• Falecia Stuckey – Process Improvement
• Linda Schenk – Social Media

During this seminar you will learn how to:

• Get more and better appointments with key decision makers
• Make better and more professional presentations
• Effortlessly handle sales objections
• Learn how to use social media marketing such as Twitter and Facebook to generate unlimited leads.
• Learn how to develop a strategic business model to generate more revenue?
• Sell more in any market
• Sell against determined and lower-priced competition
• Close more sales
• Make more money closing faster, easier, better than you ever thought possible
• And much much more…

About The Speakers

Che Brown

Che Brown is President of Partners in Learning, a sales training company, which teaches sales professionals how to make sales with less effort. Everyone loves Che’s high-energy, interactive presentations filled with step-by-step strategies and how-to tips. Learn the Principles of Successful Sales to close deals with less effort. www.partnerslearning.com

Jo Golden

Jo Golden specializes in education, communication, and moving through conflict around learning and change in the digital world. Jo believes in starting wherever people are and working with them to establish confidence, competence and practiced self-education strategies for the future. She supports clients as a digital strategist and serves as web content wrangler helping professionals, small businesses, nonprofits, and associations both structure and tell compelling stories on the web using websites, blogs, an social media.

Cedrick Harris

Cedrick Harris is the CEO of Team Takeover Marketing LLC, a sales and marketing firm focused on teaching network marketers and internet marketers on how to build a successful business online. Being in direct sales all of his life, Cedrick prides himself on teaching critical skills such as prospecting, closing, internet marketing, and offline marketing techniques. He is the #1 producer and income earner in MLMLeadSystem Pro, the top attraction marketing system on the internet today. Utilizing some of Cedrick’s techniques in your mlm or internet marketing business will surely allow you to propel your bank account to the next level.

Tracey Holinka

Tracey Holinka supports clients by teaching how to make the most of computers and the Internet while getting your business or professional self online. She steers projects and provides advanced computer coaching to clients in addition to creating compelling websites and blogs. She believes that technology ought to be clarified by professionals, not cloaked in mystique to exclude everyone else.

Falecia Stuckey

Visions Strategic Marketing, LLC is a Management Consulting company that assists small to medium sized companies in determining strategies necessary to efficiently market and develop a professional image for their firm. Visions Strategic Marketing, LLC looks at the overall efficiency and key players necessary to build and maintain functional organizations. Visions Strategic Marketing, LLC is different from other Management Consulting firms in that it provides a customized strategy for efficiency and professional services based on the needs of the client organization.

Linda Schenk

“Virtuallinda” is a creative geek with a passion for web design and helping companies create a Social Media strategy to grow their business and network. She is the Founder & CEO of Cirquel Design & Development LLC and Social Media Works. She leads a team of experts that can help any size business, locally or remotely. www.socialmediaworks.net

Need a speaker or panelist for your organization?  Linda Schenk is available for workshops, seminars and conferences!

Can’t see the animation?  View it on the Social Media Works site…

• 20 hours of video uploaded every minute onto YouTube (source YouTube blog Aug 09)
• Facebook 600k new members per day, and photos, videos per month, 700mill & 4 mill respectively (source Inside Facebook Feb 09)
• Twitter 18 million new users per year & 4 million tweets sent daily (source TechCrunch Apr 09)
• iPolicy UK – SMS messaging has a bright future (Aug 09)
• 900 000 blogs posts put up every day (source Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2008)
• YouTube daily, 96 million videos watched, $1mill bandwidth costs (source Comscore Jul 06 !)
• UPDATE: YouTube 1Billion watched per day SMH (2009)- counter updated!
• Second Life 250k virtual goods made daily, text messages 1250 per second (source Linden Lab release Sep 09)
• Money – $5.5 billion on virtual goods (casual & game worlds) even Facebooks gifts make $70 million annually (source Viximo Aug 09)
• Flickr has 73 million visitors a month who upload 700 million photos (source Yahoo Mar 09)
• Mobile social network subscribers – 92.5 million at the end of 2008, by end of 2013 rising to between 641.6-873.1 million or 132 mill annually (source Informa PDF)
• SMS – Over 2.3 trillion messages will be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008 (source Everysingleoneofus sms statistics)

Credits

• Flash and stats from Gary’s Social Media stats
• Link to the stats from @DMASocialMedia on Twitter.  SEE… you can find great info on Twitter!!

Facebook Overview

• Tone: Casual
• 4^th Most Trafficked site in the world (Alexa rank)
• Scope: Millions of users
• Homepage: “Wall” with a “stream” of your friends’ updates

Profile Features

• Status messages
• Multimedia profiles – photos, videos, notes, applications
• Events
• Granular privacy settings (item-by-item, friend-by-friend)
• Mobile reach

Profile Types

Profile

• Do not recommend this for business – best to keep a line between personal and professional
• Your individual page with 5000 friends max

Fan pages (Business page)

 

• Recommended as a quick way for businesses to get started on Facebook
• No maximum on number of fans
• Multiple customizable tabs
  • Wall tab closely resembles the Wall tab on a user profile
  • Applications available for tabs, including photos, video, events, reviews, discussions, YouTube and Slideshare
  • Each tab has its own URL, so they can be used as the landing Page for your Facebook Ads and off-site promotion
• Statuses will appear in Fans’ News Feeds.
• Messaging to entire fan base – Send promotions and special offers to your customers.
• Each tab is a unique URL and landing page
  • Great for search engine optimization (SEO)
  • Target specific audiences: new contacts v. current fans
• “Insights” – Track user stats and fans’ engagement with posts from your Page
• Favorite features:
  • Pull in your blog and/or status updates from other social media sites
  • Link with LinkedIn and Twitter profiles
• Advertising:
  • Fan Page is free advertising for your business
  • Facebook Ads – paid target advertising – inexpensive and cross-promoted to Facebook network
• IMPORTANT: When you create your Page, you must select a permanent name and category

Need help creating your page?  We can help!

Groups

• Can be a good option for small niche businesses
• 5000 people emailing threshold
• Informal and based around interests = stickiness
• Connect with your target demographic
• News, discussion, photos, videos, notes
• Open (anyone can join), closed (admin approval for joining) and secret
• No applications, minimal customization = harder to brand for a business

Terminology

• Friend = to connect with someone
• What’s on your mind? = Share a status update, link, photo or video
• Like = Quick way of giving approval without leaving a comment
• Comment = Add feedback.  Use to build relationships by giving valuable input or just sending well-wishes
• Wall = Stream of most recent activity

Success

• Obama campaign