10 Things to do after a networking event

Here are some somewhat helpful tips on what to do after a networking meeting. Because I'm such a good guy, I've copied and pasted them just for you!:

1) Send email. Don’t wait for the next day or the next week. Chances are you won’t get around to it-and even if you do-they may not recall. Send an email to everyone you took a card from. Even if you don’t see an immediate connection, just say thanks.

2) Connect on Facebook. My favorite strategy. I look the people up on Facebook using their business cards and add them to my network. Now, I know their birthdays, their occupation, and their day to day status (literally!). Best Rolodex in the world.

3) Put one thing into action. Too many people walk away from networking events feeling good, but doing nothing. Take one decisive action from what you learned.

4) Introduce two people to each other. One of my colleagues, Jim Penny, is a master at this. He finds one person at each event and introduces them to someone else he thinks they should know. Now, where those two people take the relationship is up to them, but he is always remembered as the guy who made the introduction!

5) Contact one PRP (Potential Referral Partner). One of the best ways to grow a business is through collaboration with others. Joint ventures can be amazingly powerful. Whenever I network, I try to seek out one referral partner. This can be someone that I can send business to or someone whose clients we can help. The best PRPs are those who can figure out a win-win situation. Example: A web designer sends a printer work, while a printer recommends the designer to their clients.

6) If you took pictures, put them up on Facebook. Tag them whenever possible. Pictures are best posted when the memory of the event is still fresh. If you follow #2, then you can also tag people you have added as friends. Pictures are a great way to attract people to your profile as well.

7) Blog or write about your experience. Whenever I come back from events, my mind is spinning with new ideas. If I don’t get them down, they are lost. Bullet point ideas or write them across your white board. Just get them down!

8) Make sure your website is working well. If you met a lot of people, the chances are that they will check out your website. Make sure that it is up to date and a good representation of who you are.

9) Thank the host - if applicable. This especially applies to local events which are put together by one individual. A quick note thanking them will go a long way.

10) Check networking supplies. Yes, check your stock of cool business cards, pens, and stickers after your event - and before the next one. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to order cards overnite before I learned this lesson. Check your stock after each event, and you will thank yourself later!

Twitter for Wordpress

Have a Wordpress blog? You can now add a Twitter widget that will track your Tweets right on the side of your blog.

Click here to see the Wordpress blog on it.

Go to "Appearance" and click on Widgets on the left side of your admin page. Then scroll down and add the Twitter widget. Edit the settings, save them and boom, your Tweets will show up on the right side of your blog.

Get your ad written in lights with new iPhone app

Laan Labs has developed a really neat new iPhone app: Light Writer - POV Effect. You can write your message and then wave your arms around (of course with the iPhone still in your hand) and write with lights. I still don't know how this works, but here are some pics.

Is Obama's PR tour working?

Advertising Age takes a look at how Obama's recent appearances on The Tonight Show and 60 Minutes have gone.

Five Branding pitfalls

WomenEntrepreneur.com has five branding mistakes to avoid. I don't know that these are revolutionary ideas, but sometimes it's nice to have a reminder.

Mistake No. 1: Equating branding with communications. Yes, branding includes communications. But if your branding strategy is all about messaging and advertising and nothing about business strategy or people, then you won't be able to deliver on your communications. If you have lousy customer service, telling people it's great will only drive customers away faster. But investing in training and infrastructure to improve service will enable you to market your great service and still look yourself in the mirror As more information about companies and products is available online, a great company and product are your brand's only defense.

Mistake No. 2: Branding on price. Don't do it. Basing your brand on your low price is a race to the bottom--and someone will always beat you there. Even if your prices are the same as your competitors' prices, you need to give clients compelling reasons beyond price to buy from you. The difference between the product offered by Morton Salt and a supermarket's house brand? Not much. The difference in pricing? Fourteen percent. That margin is due to how well Morton has built up the intangible parts of its brand. Establish trust with your customers, and you can breathe a lot easier when the newest competitor undercuts your price.

Mistake No. 3: Changing your promise. Like a dog sniffing at a fire hydrant, every time a new marketing vice president is brought into a company, there's a risk she'll try to change the brand, or put her mark on it. While your brand promise should be relevant and up-to-date, making a wholesale change from, say, being the educational leader to being the innovation leader will only confuse your market.

Are you ready to change your tagline or logo? Companies get tired of their own marketing way before the market does. (You live with it day in and day out. They see it only once in a while.) Remember when Jack in the Box killed its ping-pong-ball-headed CEO? Customer sentiment brought him back, but the company was smart enough to do so in a new, updated way. Whatever you do, don't let your visual brand identity and messaging force changes in your brand promise (see Mistake No. 1).

Mistake No. 4: Overpromising. The least expensive way to brand yourself is to have your customers do it for you. How do you get them to become evangelists? By underpromising and overdelivering. Fight the temptation to sound better than you are: Promise what you can deliver, then do it to the nth degree. Are you the fastest? Then don't give customers a long voice-mail message to listen to before they can act. Are you the friendliest? Don't let your employees bad-mouth clients behind their backs. Are you the coolest? Then make sure your lobby looks awesome and has wow power.

Alongside this advice, I recommend that you focus your brand message--don't try to be all things to all people. Figure out the most compelling part of your promise and build that up, rather than try to communicate 10 different elements of your brand promise.

Mistake No. 5: Me-too branding. I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs have said, "If I only get x percent of the market, I'll be rich." You have to give consumers a compelling reason to give you their business to get that percentage. You can't expect to siphon off business from the market leader without a substantive reason. Don't try to be like other companies: Be yourself. There will be a subsegment of the market that likes what you do better than what the market leader does, and that's the percentage of the market you can skim off. Instead of emulating competitors, be different. If you're competing against Starbucks, zig when it zags. Make your décor unique, encourage customers to play board games, roast beans on site or have coffee-tasting parties. Get your own buzz on.

Blackberry takes a shot at Apple

Blackberry has taken a shot at Apple with this ad. Sorry, but the iPhone still dominates all other mobile devices and we haven't seen anything close.

Marketing with YouTube

Here is a pretty useful article for people that want to use YouTube to market themselves or services.

A good example is what comedian Jon Lajoie did. He made enough funny videos that they spread like wild fire, and now he's got paid gigs to do standup. I had never heard of him before his YouTube videos caught on. His biggest hit, and the video that got him going, was "Everyday Normal Guy." It's hilarious and we posted it here for you. Thank us later. Oh and by the way this isn't safe for work due to swearing. And lots of it.



But, back to what I originally came here to post. Here are some bullet points from the article:

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Informational videos. The Stone Brewery out of Escondido, Calif. sets a great example of this strategy. The little independent brewery has more than a dozen or so videos posted on YouTube featuring various behind-the-scenes tours of their operation led by Brewery owner, Greg Koch. It’s an engaging way to connect with the story of the brewery and thus, get interested in their beers. His videos generate typically between 1,500 and 2,000 visitors.
* Educational videos. Charles Smith’s how-to instructional videos demonstrating his pottery wheel highlights this successful approach. “A lot of people come to YouTube wanting to learn something. They might run a search for ‘how to build a bookcase’, for example. So if you sell auto parts, you might put together a tutorial how to change your oil. The result is driving traffic from the video to your website,” says Miller.
* Entertainment videos. One of the greatest successes of guerrilla marketing on YouTube would have to be Blendtec, based in Orem, Utah. Blendtec sells high end industrial strength blenders so strong they are touted to be able to blend just about anything. Their series of videos on YouTube -- called “Will it blend” -- are wildly popular with some of the pieces generating more than five million viewers. Each quirky piece features an attempt (almost always successful) to blend something both odd and tricky; like hockey pucks, an iPhone, glow sticks, marbles, even a rake handle.

Twitter Local

Check this out. You can find people near you on Twitter with Twitter Local.

Are negative ads a good idea?

Entrepreneur.com takes a look at whether negative ads are a good idea. Apple seemed to make it work with their Mac vs. PC campaign, which prompted Microsoft to finally launch their "I'm a PC" campaign. But, in general some experts, like Ron Shacar, a professor at Duke University think it's best not to get into all the negativity if you are the smaller business.

"Apple started not only defining Apple, but also what the PC is about," says Shachar, who studies negative advertising. "There is a point at which the smaller company's effectiveness becomes so large that it defines the giant, and in a sense, that's exactly what happened."

Shacar doesn't think it's worth it for the smaller company to start mudslinging. They should instead focus on themselves.

"They will benefit more by putting themselves out there and demonstrating to the consumers their uniqueness and personality than actually trashing the other guy," Shachar says