The Deal: Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) Info Summits - short blasts of info for adventurous entrepreneurs!
Time: 2 minutes, 58 seconds - give it a listen with the Audio Acrobat player below. (Can’t see it? It happens sometimes. Click here instead.)
Featured Expert: Our own Allen Voivod, Certified Social Media Strategist and Co-Content Lover in Chief.
Summary: Allen recently spoke to a couple of undergraduate business classes at Southern New Hampshire University about social media and its place in the broader marketing planning and business planning picture. Post-lecture, he took a moment to riff on three top things to consider for social media strategy.
Teaser Quip: “This doesn’t always look like money, exactly - it’s not necessarily a straight A-to-B link.”
Idea Path: Integrating social media strategy with a marketing plan and a business plan >> 3 top things to consider >> who/where the audience is now >> who/where the audience will be >> search engine optimization >> Google and Bing indexing full feeds of Facebook and Twitter >> Universal Search Placement (USP) >> return on investment (ROI) >> David Meerman Scott putting his pants on >> other ways to look at ROI
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Last week, I had a conference call to discuss a potential series of social media workshops we might have done with Leslie Poston, of NH’s Uptown Uncorked and the co-author of Twitter for Dummies.
However, Leslie found out earlier that morning that Lani and I are members of the International Social Media Association (ISMA). As a result, she said she couldn’t do any workshops with us or be seen as being associated with our business because of our relationship with ISMA.
That, shall we say, took me a bit off-guard.
Now, I knew that there had been a brouhaha in the blogosphere about ISMA back in December, but I hadn’t bothered to read anything about it. As I’ve told a number of people then and recently, I’m content to let ISMA handle ISMA issues, and focus on my own business. In retrospect, though, I probably should have paid a little closer attention.
Turns out Leslie also has her own specific concerns about ISMA, and she and I had a great conversation (really!) after the initial surprise wore off.
She asked me - and I’m paraphrasing - what I could tell her about ISMA to change her mind, because other people had already tried unsuccessfully to do so.
The rest of this post mirrors what I shared with her in response, which has little to do with ISMA and much more to do with our own business and the reasons for the decisions we made, which are four-fold:
1. Previous corporate experience.
2. Ramp up our learning curve for to serve our audience in general, and our clients in specific, much better.
3. Long-term trust in Mari Smith.
4. Global masterminding opportunity.
And up front, I’ll ask you the same questions (also paraphrased) I asked Leslie before I told her the story:
Based on what I’m about to share, can you see how we logically came to be involved with ISMA from a business perspective? Can you see why it makes sense that we as business owners made the decision to go through Mari’s program?
I’ll keep this short and to the point. Promise.
1. Previous stuff. Way back before the dawn of time (1998-2001), I worked in corporate America as a bank auditor. Me? A bank auditor?! Yes, you read it right: A bank auditor. And one of the expectations of the job was to work toward the “Certified Internal Auditor” (CIA) designation offered by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), a professional association for the industry.
Not only did I earn that one, I was about six months away from earning my “Certified Information Systems Auditor” (CISA) desgnation from yet another association, the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), before I switched careers.
This wasn’t a matter of ego, stacking all the acronyms behind my name. This was a professional expectation, laid down by the AVPs, VPs, and SVPs who managed the auditing departments of two banks for which I’d worked as an auditor.
So when someone talks to me about the professional benefits of certification - regardless of how many organizations in the industry are doing the certifying - it’s an idea I can get behind.
2. Ramp up. In 2007 and 2008, we were getting more and more questions about social media from clients. Hey, when you handle blogging and online content strategy, it’s a natural leap.
We’ve been blogging since 2006, on Facebook since 2007, and Twitter since 2008 - imperfectly, in the trenches, learning as we go and figuring things out the way most small business owners do. But as the questions started coming faster, and became more pointed (i.e., “Can you help us?”), Lani and I knew we needed to get into a focused training program. We highly value education and professional development, and we looked to a source we already knew and trusted to get it.
3. Mari Smith. We’d been following Mari for about a year when we had the chance to meet her at an event in November 2008. You know how sometimes you meet someone in person and they’re not the same person you’d been reading, listening to, and watching on YouTube? Not so with Mari. She was exactly as genuine, generous, and transparent in person as she was online. What a relief!
Mari announced in March 2009 that she was going to be rolling out a six-month intensive training program - not just on Facebook and Twitter, and not just her! She brought in Lou Bortone (another NH guy) to teach about online video, Jesse Stay (the creator of Static FBML), Nathan Kievman on LinkedIn, and a few others, too. It was a virtual program - with live content delivered via webinars - and that fit in perfectly with our married-with-business-and-two-young-children lives.
Plus, she had even bigger plans. She intended the program to be a certification-level thing. She intended to launch a global association at the end of this inaugural program. And when she talks about “Radical Strategic Visibility,” she walks the walk.
We believe Mari, we believe IN her and the purity of her intentions, and it was the right program at the right time for us. Not to mention…
4. Masterminding. This is one thing I didn’t share with Leslie when she and I talked, but it’s very relevant (and particularly so for Lani). You know the benefits of collaborating with like-minded entrepreneurs. It’s why you go to networking gigs, attend regular events in your industry, and other business-focused get-togethers in your corner of the world.
But how often do you get the chance to participate in a six-month social media intensive, sharing resources, brainstorming new opportunities, and making valuable connections, with 50 business owners in six countries (US, Canada, UK, Italy, South Africa, Australia)?
Answer: Once in a blue moon. We’d have been silly to pass it up. So in April of 2009, we said “Yes” to Mari. And there you have it.
Now, here we are, 11 months later. Are there other social media certification programs out there? Yes. Are any of them perfect? No. Mari herself regularly notes through her own channels and with comments on other folks’ blogs that there’s room to improve ISMA, and she’s consistently working in that direction.
And there are the “other” questions. Can social media practitioners authentically be certified in the first place? How can a new professional body, with the same intentions as other well-recognized associations - like, say, the American Marketing Association (AMA), the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) or the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) legitimize itself? What’s an appropriate investment for in-depth social media training? Are direct marketing tactics relevant for the social media space?
Those “other” questions go well beyond ISMA, and to my mind, focusing on ISMA in answering them is the equivalent of ignoring the forest for the trees. So in future posts later this month and year, I’m going to start throwing my hat into the larger, more relevant fray and answer these larger questions.
In the meantime…
For Epiphanies Inc. in specific, in my conversation with Leslie and reputationally in our corner of the world, the real issue boils down simply and only to those two questions I asked her (and you) earlier:
Can you see how we logically came to be involved with ISMA, from a business perspective? Can you see why it makes sense that we as business owners made the decision to go through Mari’s program?
Here’s one thing that 2009 taught us - everything you think you know about business can change very rapidly, and cause even the most stable of companies to get nervous, get shaky, and in some unfortunate circumstances, go under.
Here’s something else we know - out of recessions come some of the most powerful, profitable, game-changing companies. General Electric, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, CNN, Federal Express, Burger King, and dozens of other giants started out in what some would consider the worst of economic circumstances.
One of the keys to their survival through thick and thin is their ability to innovate - to constantly search for ways to improve the way they do business, internally and externally. This is the overriding theme behind “Wild for Innovation,” billed as “a unique opportunity for New Hampshire businesspeople to converge with some of the brightest at UNH for a day of learning, sharing, celebration.”
It’s happening Friday, March 5th, at UNH in Durham, starting at 12pm and continuing through 5:45pm, after which there’s going to be a tailgate-style networking dinner. (You can stay and watch UNH’s hockey team take on Boston College at 7:30pm and make a night of it, too.)
I’ll be honest: I wasn’t planning on going originally, even though one of our clients is involved in putting on this event. But I’ve since changed my mind, and the reason why is because of what I learned from studying up on trade shows a couple of years ago:
If you want to stand out in your field, look at what’s happening in different industries to get fresh ideas, find out what’s working (and what isn’t), and bring some of that into your own presence as appropriate.
Same thing goes for innovation - if you want to get in the innovation mindset, surround yourself with open-minded business professionals who are thinking in that direction. Surround yourself with people who are actually innovating for a living. Get fresh input from different fields that you can take back and put to work in your own business.
You’re going to get that (and a lot more) from Wild for Innovation Day. It’s an event unlike others I’ve seen put on here in NH in the past, tickets are limited for it, and half are gone already, so don’t wait until the last minute - jump on it today.
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Debbie Bolduc of Franklin Savings Bank first brought this story to my attention back in October 2009, and it quickly made its way into our presentations as a powerful example of how building a dedicated tribe through social media has tremendous, far-reaching, and even unexpected benefits.
Short summary: In September of 2009, Vermont’s Rock Art Brewery got a cease-and-desist letter from Monster Energy Drinks (subsidiary of the multi-billion-dollar Hansen’s Natural Beverages). They wanted Rock Art to stop using “The Vermonster” as the name of one of its microbrewed beers. Rock Art found out they could fight it in court and have a good chance to win, but it would likely bankrupt the comparatively small-pocketed company in the process.
A month and a half after receiving the C&D letter, thanks to thousands of people joining a Monster boycott movement on Facebook and nearly 2 million tweets on Twitter about it (which also got the attention of one of their US Senators), Monster dropped the case. Or, as CNN succinctly puts it, “Matt [Nadeau, Rock Art's owner] used social media to publicize his plight and settled the dispute amicably.”
Yes, that’s right - this social media groundswell also led to television coverage on major news outlets, including this piece last week on CNN. And the best news - as you’ll hear at the end of the report - is that Nadeau leveraged the power of his tribe to create real change in how small businesses like his, yours, and ours can protect their trademarks.
Ever get a Twitter DM or see a tweet that promised X tweets a day and X followers per month for a monthly fee? Here’s what may be going on behind the scenes…and note to self, don’t record video while facing direct sunlight.
We’ve done a webinar or two before, but this will be the first time one of us has been webcast live in streaming video glory, and we’re pretty psyched. This session is primarily being promoted for New Hampshire audiences, but the information applies to businesses wherever they may be. Hope to “see” you there!
Gilford, NH (2/12/10) - With more than 330,000 NH residents on Facebook and 350 million overall, a billion YouTube streams being played every single day, and the US government asking Twitter to delay scheduled downtime because of its vital role in crisis communication across the world, it’s very clear – social media platforms are here to stay. In fact, social media channels are rapidly becoming some of the most preferred methods of communicating important information.
But do you know how to maximize social media’s use for business purposes? Learn how during “New Mediums/New Messages – How Social Media is Transforming Communication,” the free NH BizCast webinar slated for Wednesday, February 17th from noon-1 p.m EST. It will be broadcast live online at www.NHEconomy.com.
“It’s not enough these days to rely on traditional communications and advertising vehicles,” said New Hampshire Division of Economic Development Interim Director Roy Duddy. “To keep pace, you really need to learn how to reach new audiences via social networking.”
“New Mediums/New Messages – How Social Media is Transforming Communication” is a Social Media Crash Course, covering trends, fears, and success stories, and exploring how they relate to the potential and power businesses and organizations have today. Offered by the New Hampshire Division of Economic Development, the February 17th BizCast will feature Allen Voivod, co-owner of Epiphanies, Inc.
Allen and his wife/business partner Lani have been featured widely in the media, including the NH Union Leader, Forbes.com, NH Business Review, Blog Talk Radio, NHPR, and New Hampshire Today. As founding members of the International Social Media Association, they have delivered presentations for the NH High Technology Council, Women Inspiring Women, and the American Society for Training and Development, among many other groups.
As is the case with all NH BizCasts, the webcast will be hosted live at the Comfort Inn (71 Hall Street) in Concord and will feature a live audience.
For more information and to attend the BizCast, visit www.NHEconomy.com. Those planning on participating in the live audience at the Comfort Inn are asked to pre-register by contacting Leslie Sherman at (603) 271-2591 or leslie.sherman@dred.state.nh.us.
About Epiphanies, Inc. As Certified Social Media Strategists and Certified Inbound Marketing Professionals, Lani and Allen Voivod share powerful social marketing & success strategies through speaking, workshops, customized training programs, and consulting. Their company, Epiphanies, Inc., trains teams, crafts strategies, and serves as long-term success partners for a handful of global brands, industries, and mission-driven organizations. To find out how they can help your business boost visibility, community, competitive edge, memberships, and profits, become a Fan of Epiphanies, Inc. at http://facebook.com/AhaYourself and drop them a line on their Wall, or email facebook [at] EpiphaniesInc [dot] com.
About the NH Division of Economic Development The New Hampshire Division of Economic Development, comprised of the New Hampshire Business Resource Center and the International Trade Resource Center, offer resources to enhance the economic activities of the state through business attraction outreach, in-state business expansion efforts, and facilitation of government and international sales. To network, access resources, and support the efforts that make NH one of the “Most Livable States” in the nation, become a Fan at http://facebook.com/NoBullBusiness.
Heard the news about Twitter? It’s yet another password hack, but it’s not really their fault. (Really!)
Since some of the things I’ve read required me to read them two and three time to understand what was up, and since I had a client ask me whether they should be worried about their account, I thought I’d share with you a very simple explanation for this latest Twitter security breach, and plan of action for you, in 6 easy points:
1. Some file-sharing websites/forums (also called “torrent” sites) have turned out to be hacker scams, thought out over the long-term. Hackers built online forums and sold them to unsuspecting folks, secretly keeping the ability to access complete lists of usernames and passwords for themselves.
2. As a sweeping generalization, people like to use the same username and password across all their different logins anywhere on the Internet whenever possible (from your newsletters to online banking to web-based email to Twitter).
3. When these hacker-compromised forums get popular and get enough users, there’s enough reason for hackers to go back in, pull the lists of usernames and passwords, and use them for nefarious purposes.
4. One of those nefarious purposes was to break into Twitter accounts - likely to send spam, scam people for more confidential information, et cetera.
5. So if you use file-sharing forums, or software like BitTorrent, and you want to keep using it, then you’ll need to change your password for Twitter (and would be advised to do it in every other online venue you use that requires a password).
6. And if not, then you don’t have to worry about it for the short term…but do consider the idea of changing passwords more frequently and (to be REALLY safe) use different passwords for different sites where possible, so they’re not repeated across websites/forums.
Have you heard of Michael Stelzner? Or did you, like me, only know him as “that white paper guy”? (Which is actually intended as a compliment, since there’s no one else I think of when I think of white papers.)
(Side note: Michael’s on the Board of Advisors for the International Social Media Association, and delivered this webinar on their behalf - it was a freebie for Founding, Platinum, and Premium ISMA members, and available to Basic and non-members for a nominal fee.)
It was the inside story of the success of his 2009 Social Media Marketing Industry Survey, which led to more than 40,000 downloads of the related report, more than 3,500 new email subscribers, 500+ news and blog stories, and helped change his brand positioning from just being a white paper expert to being a social media expert as well.
You’ll have to check out the further details at the ISMA site, but I wanted to share three quick stories for small biz owners, marketing professionals, and anyone tasked with creating social media campaigns.
1. Even the best don’t always hit their goals. In the Survey itself and in tweets about it, Michael wrote that he needed 1,000 people to take the Survey. He also made it very easy for people to share links to the Survey form. In 10 days, he got about 880 to take the Survey.
Do you think he was beating himself up over not hitting the goal? Heck no! He got more than enough responses to create a decent report, and he ran with it, without hemming and hawing about it.
2. Be open to surprise benefits. In the final report, Michael included links to a couple articles as additional resources. One of them was The Dark Side of Twitter: What Businesses Need to Know, a “MarketingProfs Today” newsletter article. On the strength of the report’s reception, that article became the most popular article of 2009 on the MarketingProfs site.
As he shared in the webinar, that was an unintended side benefit of the campaign. And with more than 360,000 members, you can bet that created fantastic exposure for him.
3. “Anticipation is a marketing super-weapon.” To propel the report to stardom, Michael used an age-old tactic. He emailed the 880 Survey respondents days before the report was ready to tell them it was coming, and to be on the lookout for it, promising some very surprising results. He reached out to industry leaders and media centers of influence in advance, and offered to make the report available to them a day early to get a jump on the story.
For an automotive analogy, imagine stepping down on the gas and the brake at the same time, then suddenly releasing the brake - and pressing a “turbo” button at the same time. Result? Explosive launch!
There’s a 2010 Survey report being created as I write this, and if you want to get your hands on it, keep an eye on Michael’s excellent Social Media Examiner for details.
The Deal: Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) Info Summits - short blasts of info for adventurous entrepreneurs!
Time: 4 minutes, 18 seconds - give it a listen with the Audio Acrobat player below.
Featured Expert: Our own Allen Voivod, Certified Social Media Strategist and Co-Content Lover in Chief.
Summary: Seems like a paradox, doesn’t it? Setting an intention for the outcome you want, but being emotionally detached from the outcome? There’s a way to reconcile the two, and even if you have two left feet, you’ll be able to put it into action for yourself and your own work.
Teaser Quip: “The path doesn’t look like what you always expect it to look like.”
Idea Path: Great minds in self-improvement >> desired results >> control through letting go >> value judgments >> the dancing analogy >> firmness >> accept and add >>how it applies to networking and business meetings >> having something to play off of >> purpose creates opportunity
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Big news! We just got word that we’ve been invited onto the new Kiva blogger team, to support their mission to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. An honor beyond measure, indeed.
In case you haven’t heard of them, Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.
Basically, you can lend as little as $25 to a resourceful mother, entrepreneurial collective, budding leader, and/or talented artisan and they turn that modest amount into ventures that bolster their communities, feed their children, and foster better, brighter futures, all thanks to your loan.
And YES, it’s a LOAN. You get your money back. In fact, Kiva loans boast a repayment rate of more than 98%.
Since it was co-founded by spousal-preneurs - Matt Flannery and Jessica Jackley - and since we’ve been invested in the like-minded MicroCredit-NH for four years, you can imagine how well we jibe with Kiva’s vibe. And yes, that rhyme was too good to resist.
But there’s bigger news to be shared. Kiva made it to the $1 million round in the Chase Community Giving challenge, along with 99 other deserving non-profit organizations. Now, if it were any other organization, $1 million would do $1 million worth of work. For Kiva, and the entrepreneurs they support, $1 million will go much, MUCH further. From the Kiva Blog:
Winning the Chase Community Giving challenge would enable Kiva to make critical investments in staff to strengthen and expand Kiva’s Field Partner network while building and improving the Kiva website to better educate, connect, and serve Kiva lenders. By investing in Kiva’s unique model, we can generate about $10 in loans from the internet community for every $1 of award money we spend building and improving the platform.
You read it right - $10 million in loans to lift hard-working, business-minded people in third-world countries out of abject poverty. They can do it…with your vote. But you only have until Friday January 22nd to help. Here’s all you have to do:
1. Go to Facebook and add the Chase Community Giving application. (If you’re not a big fan of adding apps, don’t worry - you can always remove the app after it’s all over.)
2. Once the app is added, you’ll see a prompt asking you to become a Fan of the Chase Community Giving Fan Page in order to be eligible to vote.
3. Finally, go to the “Leaderboard” (everything on the site is prominently marked), and find “Kiva Microfunds” in the list. Currently, they’re #14 with a bullet. Click on their link, and you’ll be brought to their page.
4. Vote for ‘em!
5. Take Chase up on the convenient offer to post a note to your profile that you voted for Kiva, so you can spread the word far and wide through your network. Think Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, your blog, YouTube — all those social channels, there for you to make the world a better place with a few quick shout outs to your Friends, Fans, Followers, Subscribers, and Connections.
Easy peasy. That’s how a few clicks turns into a cool $10 million!
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on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Agents of Karma.
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That, shall we say, took me a bit off-guard. 
1. Previous stuff. Way back before the dawn of time (1998-2001), I worked in corporate America as a bank auditor. Me? A bank auditor?! Yes, you read it right: A bank auditor. And one of the expectations of the job was to work toward the “Certified Internal Auditor” (CIA) designation offered by the 
This wasn’t a matter of ego, stacking all the acronyms behind my name. This was a professional expectation, laid down by the AVPs, VPs, and SVPs who managed the auditing departments of two banks for which I’d worked as an auditor.
3. Mari Smith. We’d been following Mari for about a year when we had the chance to meet her at an event in November 2008. You know how sometimes you meet someone in person and they’re not the same person you’d been reading, listening to, and watching on YouTube? Not so with Mari. She was exactly as genuine, generous, and transparent in person as she was online. What a relief!
Those “other” questions go well beyond ISMA, and to my mind, focusing on ISMA in answering them is the equivalent of ignoring the forest for the trees. So in future posts later this month and year, I’m going to start throwing my hat into the larger, more relevant fray and answer these larger questions.
Here’s one thing that 2009 taught us - everything you think you know about business can change very rapidly, and cause even the most stable of companies to get nervous, get shaky, and in some unfortunate circumstances, go under.
But do you know how to maximize social media’s use for business purposes? Learn how during “New Mediums/New Messages – How Social Media is Transforming Communication,” the free NH BizCast webinar slated for Wednesday, February 17th from noon-1 p.m EST. It will be broadcast live online at 
for themselves.
Well, things have changed for Mr. Stelzner in the last year, and he revealed the back story of his transformation a few days ago during a fantastic webinar: “
In case you haven’t heard of them, Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.
