Yaffe Tidbits

10 Good Super Bowl 2012 Ads & An Ugly One

The 2012 Super Bowl and accompanying Brand Bowl has come and gone. There were some good ads and some really bad ads, but none stood out to me as truly great ads. In the last few years, picking a number one ad was either easy because it was a standout or hard because, like last year, there were two standouts (VW Vader spot and Chrysler's Imported from Detroit spot). This year it was hard because I really didn't have strong feelings about any one spot. But be that as it may, here's my top 10 spots and my worst of the year pick.

10. Honda - "Matthew's Day Off"

So many people loved this ad, that I had to make it a top 10. But truthfully, I'm not a big fan. I think part of it was that Honda used VW's Vader kid "leak the spot online" strategy and it backfired. Instead of endearing the spot to me with all the coverage it got before the Super Bowl, I was already tired of it. I think if I saw it and it was a surprise, I might have felt - oh wow, look what they did. Instead, I felt, meh... they took an iconic movie character and reinacted some movie stuff and it didn't tie in to the car at all. If I hadn't looked up the spot, I wouldn't have been able to tell you which car it was.

 

9. Oikos Greek Yogurt - "The Tease"

This one made the list simply because it's got a woman head butting John Stamos to the floor. And who doesn't want to see that again?

 

8. The Voice - "Vocal Kombat"

Props to NBC's The Voice for creating something far more engaging than a montage of clips for a show promo. This was entertaining, had high action, cool graphics and still got across the premise of the show, which is the judges fighting to get the best voice to choose them. Love the "Kill Bill" sequences and graphics, down to Cee-Lo's outfit. And the twist at the end made me laugh.

 

7. Doritos - "Man's Best Friend"

What's the Super Bowl without dog spots. Here's the first one to make my list. One of the winners of Doritos annual Super Bowl ad contest. Clever concept, the dog gives his master Doritos as "hush money" after "offing" the cat. Nice.

 

6. Sex Sells for H&M and Teleflora

We always see examples of good and bad use of the time honored tradition of sex sells. Here's two good examples - one for the men and one for the ladies. First, there was Teleflora. I would actually call this a great product benefit spot. Guys may think giving flowers is stupid. But, with Valentine's Day coming up, Teleflora reminds us dumb guys the real product benefit of buying flowers, mixing metaphors with Christmas, using the line, "give, and you shall receive."

 

On the other hand, we have David Beckham for men's underwear for H&M. Now, you may think they're targeting the wrong market - getting the ladies attention for a men's underwear product. But, I'm sure their research shows that most of the men's underwear is actually bought by the women in their lives. Let's face it, most of us guys will keep wearing shabby, holey underwear rather than go buy new stuff. Also, judging by a lot of the tweets I read, a lot of women are buying this stuff just because they're buying whatever he's selling.

 

5. Chrysler - "Halftime in America"

I have mixed feelings about this one. For one thing, it must have run during the one time I got up and left the set - so I didn't see it in context, just later on the web. It suffers by comparison. Last year's imported from Detroit spot featuring Eminem was so powerful and poignant. Trying to recapture the magic of a special spot is very hard to do. I think they did a valiant job here, but it pales in comparison. For one thing, as someone living in Detroit, I don't remember that "we almost lost it all" - sure time have been tough and we were hit harder than most, but I don't remember ever thinking we were going to lose everything. It's a well written, well produced spot with an icon to lead the charge. But, it's not last year's spot. Not even close.

 

4. Budweiser - Eternal Optimism

Don't love the beer, but I love this ad. And I wish my clients had this kind of budgets! It's a lot of fun, with a great soundtrack featuring a mash-up The Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary" and Flo Rida's "Good Feelin'." It basically shows that over time, people have always gathered together with their buds for a good time gathering - and often it's involved their favorite beer. It's a spot that works well with Budweiser's tagline "Grab some Buds."

 

3. Volkswagen - "The Dog Strikes Back"

This is really two spots in one. One spot about a dog that sees the new VW Beetle and really wants to chase it, but needs to get in shape to do so. And another that takes place in a galaxy far, far away. I think VW did a much better job of trying to top last year's special ad, than Chrysler. They didn't succeed either, but I like what they did better. Instead of the new and improved version, they went with a new spot that gives a nod to the old classic. I didn't see the twist at the end coming and I loved it. I know some think they should have just ended it with the dog's story. Personally, I think it could have come off as schmaltzy by itself. With the commercial shifting to the Star Wars bar and a blatant reference to last year's spot - I thought it was great. I also like that the pre-Super Bowl spot released on the web (dogs barking out the Darth Vader theme) was a nice hint to the eventual spot without actually being the spot.

 

2. Accura - "Transactions"

I originally had this as my number one ad, but upon further review, it turns out I like the Chevy ad better. I did really like this one though. Of all the ads, this one got the biggest laughs from me. Sure, it was a bit over the top. But, Leno in a flying squirrel jet back to steal the deal just as Jerry Seinfeld was about to seal it? Loved it. What can I say, you make me laugh, you're gonna get high marks from me. It's just how I roll.

 

1. Chevy Silverado - "2012 Mayan Calendar"

I love this ad. Talk about a brand promise - buy our product and survive the apocalypse. Sure, it's not realistic, but it's fun. And I don't mind at all that they took a poke at the competition. I come from a rural area where guys drive trucks and if you're a Chevy guy, you look at the Ford and Dodge guys with disdain and vise versa. It just taps into the target market mindset.

I like that they took something topical like the predicted end of the world and had fun with it. They didn't just stick with one reason either - you see alien spacecraft, volcanoes, meteors and even the more biblical rain of frogs. Loved the burning Big Boy statue and a play on the old joke (and recent Zombie movie) idea that one of the things that will last forever is twinkies. Nice co-branding opportunity, too, I'm sure. Added bonus for the counter intuitive Barry Manalow track.

 

And 1 Ugly One.

That's my take on the best spots. There were plenty of disappointments, too. I think the eTrade baby spots have lost their luster. Career Builder brought back the chimps and it wasn't bad, but it was just a rehash of previous spots. I thought the Cars.com one with the extra head singing was just creepy. But one advertiser was just ugly. I bet you know who it was. Go Daddy once again stunk up the place with horrible ads that just ticked off at least half of the possible customers right off the bat. As one woman tweeted, "what? Women don't buy domain names?" Where H&M and Teleflora (and even Fiat) used sex to sell in a good way, these people use it all wrong. Their spots are sexist. They play the bait and switch game - Oooo, come to our website and maybe you'll see these women naked (you won't). And to make matters worse, it's just bad, reheated creative. They've basically run the same idea for I don't know how many Super Bowls now. Time to banish them from the event, if you ask me.

So, what were your favorites? Did I miss some? Do you think I'm a moron for including one of these? I'd love to hear your take on the best and worst of 2012 Super Bowl ads.

Mike McClure, Ad Junkie

How To Do Local Blogger Outreach The Right Way

Getting bloggers to talk about your product is a tricky thing. Getting social media influencers to talk about your product multiple times is even harder - especially if you're a regional or local brand, rather than a big national brand. The Suburban Collection of car dealerships is doing it in the Metro Detroit area and doing it well. And here's how.

Each weekend, they give a car from one of their dealerships to a local blogger and social media influencer as part of their social test drive program. In return, they ask that when you tweet, facebook, foursquare or whatever, you use the hashtag they created for the program: #SocialTestDrive. They don't put any restrictions on what you write or blog about, which is the only way to do it right. They let their product and service speak for itself and trust that it will result in a good experience for the recipient of the vehicle.

The Suburban Collection has only been doing this for about four weeks now, but they are already seeing good results. After their first week, they sold a couple vehicles as a direct result of the program. One of the guys who bought after following the first week's social test drive online said he came in because the experience he witnessed through the social channels seemed to be a good one. He had had a bad experience at Suburban in the past, but after reading the posts, he decided to give them another try. This time, he had a real good experience. The vehicle he bought wasn't even the one that was being test driven that weekend. But, the experience he'd followed through social media seemed good enough to give Suburban another shot.

"Our goal is to just be a part of the conversation," says Zac Holmes, Online Marketing Coordinator at Suburban. "People hang out online, live there, interact there - that's where you'll find them. We wanted to reach out to them in the space they're already occupying and connect them to our brand."

One of the smart things Suburban is doing is the way they recruit the people to participate in their program. They do it by having the person who just finished the program choose the next one, giving them the additional perk of sharing the experience with their friends. Plus, they get a list of influencers already vetted for them. Who else would know the local blogger/social media influencer landscape better than those who are a part of it.

"People are a lot more likely to believe a review if you hear it from someone you know or follow, rather than from the brand itself," said Holmes. "It's more realistic when it's coming from them. We also wanted to put people in vehicles they might not try otherwise. This makes driving part of the buying experience - whether it's actually driving the vehicle or driving it vicariously through following along with the driver online."

I have first hand experience in how the process works, since I participated in their social test drive program last weekend, driving a hybrid Honda Insight from Suburban Honda. I had followed the previous weekend's driver, fellow social media and ad guy, Bryan Willmert, on his social test drive (mostly through Instagram) and had enjoyed his story. Then, to my surprise the following week I got a tweet from both Zac and the Suburban Collection asking if I'd like to participate. Obviously, I said yes. And it was a pretty good experience.

They gave me a choice of several different brands. Once I chose Honda, they asked what I was driving and suggested four different models that I might like to test drive. I was interested in checking out their hybrid, the Honda Insight. When I showed up, they walked me through the vehicle and how to work all the options. They shot a video of me with the car and sent me on my way.

It was interesting to see the interaction I got. On my first day (last Friday), I had to go downtown Detroit for a lunch meeting. I tweeted out where I was going and the car I was in. I immediately got feedback via twitter. One person I know tweeted me that they were a half mile away from my meeting, could I stop by while there. I swung by and let him take the Insight for a tool around the city. Once that was done another tweeted for "nexties" and another wanted to see it and we hooked up the following day at the auto show. So, the most immediate feedback came via twitter - including from people outside of my own followers, people who were following the hashtag, either promoted by Suburban or via previous test drivers.

Longer discussions, with more in depth questions, came on the Facebook messages/pictures I posted. And for shear volume, my Instagram posts seemed to get the most reactions - including again, from people I had no idea who they were. They were just fans of the car or the brand.

Talking with Holmes, who works with four of the Suburban Collection dealerships in the Detroit area (Honda, Acura, Ford and Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge/Ram), his group has enthusiastically embraced the program and plans to continue it with one or two social test drivers each week. Judging from my experience and the reaction to it, I'd say they're on to something. It's a good way to connect with your local community in a very real way and really boost your share of conversation online. So, think about it. How can you accomplish the same for your local brand/client?

Mike McClure, Social Driver

Building a Mobile-Friendly Website

Part 2 of our Mobile Marketing Series

Last week we dipped our toes into an ever-changing and exciting world of Mobile Marketing.  You enter Part 2 of the Mobile series, armed with knockout customer insights and a vocabulary full of jargon terms you already used to impress everyone at Monday’s department meeting.  The next step is to build a proper Mobile webpage, which will not only convert potential clients into paying customers, but increase positive association with your brand.

 

Seeing Through Your Customers’ Eyes
Access your website through a Mobile device, and see it through the customer’s eyes. As expected, the design and layout of what looks good on a personal computer doesn’t translate well into mobile experience.  If you’re squinting to see the font, so are your frustrated customers. If you’re having trouble navigating through the pages, your customers are contemplating checking out your competitor. If the page is still loading by the time you finish this paragraph, the customer already left.

Cashing In on the Insights
The insights you gathered are a blueprint for your website. After monitoring and analyzing your traffic through Google, you will know what mobile devices your customers are using. iPhone, Android, Blackberry or tablets have different  strengths and weaknesses, so it’s crucial you understand them. For instance: if your customers are primarily using an iPhone, keep in mind that it cannot run Flash (so don’t use it).  Android and iPhone use touchscreen navigation, while Blackberries might not.

Satisfying a Need
Looking at your Mobile Segmentation analysis, ask what NEED does your website satisfy for your customer? Depending on your insights you may arrive at different conclusions. If your customers frequently get lost while trying to find your location, they access your mobile website for directions or your phone number. If that’s the case, make sure that the first page that loads has your phone number and directions.   If they are looking for prices, make it brain-dead easy for them to find and buy items. If they’re looking for coupons, you can offer a special for signing on Foursquare or “Liking” you on Facebook/ following you on Twitter.  Satisfying their need is your first priority. Users who cannot find what they are looking for or are have trouble navigating through the store check-outs, often leave halfway through the transaction, never to return.

Keep it simple. I mean it.
Everybody knows your cool website has flashy graphics, ready-to-download case studies and well-written bios, but nobody wants to see it on their smartphone.  Slow connection speeds and pay-per-byte data plans will make the experience of going to your website expensive and unbearably slow. Keep the graphics to a minimum and focus on satisfying the customer’s needs.

Small Screens = Large Fonts
Unless your customers are rocking an iPad, they’ll have a hard time seeing anything written in regular font.  Make the font larger, and test it on mobile devices. Your mobile page should fit neatly into the screen of the hand-held device and spitting out easily-digestible content. Buttons, links and navigation tools should also be bigger to make navigation between pages easier (especially with touch-screen devices).

Click to Call
If you’re listing a phone number that the customer might want to contact you with, make sure that it’s “click to call.” Once the customer clicks (or touches) the phone number they will have an option to automatically dial it, eliminating the hassle to write it down(while driving).

Listen to Feedback
The biggest mistake you can make is ignore your customers while building a mobile website specifically designed for them. Involve them in the process by asking about and monitoring their mobile use. When the beta version of your website comes out, bring in a few loyal customers you trust and test it out. Observe and improve.

Deep Thoughts About Ending Paragraphs
If you haven’t found a mobile development expert within your department’—congratulations you are the new mobile web development expert of your department! As the newly-crowned mobile expert it is your responsibility to enlist support of digital advertising veterans to make this thing a reality (what about The Yaffe Group? I hear they’re pretty good). Stay tuned, next week brings the final installment of the Mobile Series. Use the internet-comment-machine below to post your mobile thoughts.

 Dmitri Pivtorak, Socially Mobile

What You Need To Do In Mobile Marketing This Year

Part 1: Know your mobile customer

For most of us the 2012 resolutions look like this: lay off Hot Pockets, earn a ton of money and make a diligent effort to smile when your mother-in-law unexpectedly shows up on your doorstep for a visit. When it comes to resolutions for your business Mobile Marketing should be at the top of your list— especially if you’re playing catch up with competition. Last year was huge for mobile marketing and it’s getting even bigger. Technology innovations make it easy to shop, stay social, informed and entertained anywhere and anytime.  Smartphones drive our life on-the-go and with it present constant opportunities to advertise. Why wouldn’t you reach your customer through something they carry and interact with every waking (and sometimes sleeping) moment?

Watch the video below to see some amazing mobile stats

 

Know your mobile customer
Gen-Y facetweets, youblogs, and mysquares faster than you can log into your email, while Grandma is still figuring out the whole webcam thing. Each customer uses a smartphone to satisfy a NEED while being restricted or empowered by their aptitude for technology.  The game hasn’t changed, customers are still shopping, but they’re using mobile to simplify and enrich their experience.

Tracking mobile visitors
First step is to assess the situation. You might not know that people are accessing your website through mobile devices unless you have a way to track it. Meet your new best friend, Google Analytics. Study your traffic under the microscope and establish a baseline. What devices are your customers using? How does your marketing strategy affect traffic? Through analytics you will understand the current situation and pave way for future decisions.

 Identifying Mobile Segments
The wonderful thing about customers is that they can be grouped together into segments.  After you ninja your way through demographic/geo profiles think about the following.  

Psychographic and motivational segmentation will force you to step into the shoes of your customer and focus on their attitudes, goals and emotional features.
-Think about what your users seek through their mobile devices: entertainment, information, social or a bargain. For instance, customers seeking a bargain may not like mobile technology, but will use it anyway if there is a reward (like a coupon or a discount).
-Is the customer skating on the high tech edge or staying away from technology because it invades their privacy? For example: Social oriented high tech users would be more likely to check in on foursquare  at your store location, which presents a valuable opportunity to engage them.
-Is mobile a lifestyle choice or something they are forced to use? Gen Y vs Late adopters.
-In addition to insights you gather from this exercise, create a map to key customer touch points with your brand. Map out customer’s mobile shopping experience from interest about your product to purchasing decision. 
-Do they browse and compare prices on the phone before purchasing? What brought them to your website? Was it to find store locations, order online, get a deal or check in on foursquare? How did they find out about it? Through company’s e-letter, a chat with company rep, QR code or external advertising?

I leave you with many questions to answer and priorities to fulfill.  Moving forward in the Mobile Resolutions series, you’ll learn about mobile websites and implementing mobile advertising strategies.  In the meantime, share some of your mobile experiences in the comment section and give Grandma a call, she  still needs help.

Check back next week for part 2 of this series.

Dmitri Pivtorak, On the move, going mobile

SEO, SEM and Social Marketing: You Have to Know It All

Have you ever wondered what to do first while developing digital strategies for your business? Should you redesign your corporate websites and rewrite all the content for search engine purposes? Or should you start display advertising programs on Adwords and AdCenter? 

It’s amazing how the usage of the Internet has evolved over the past few years. Two or three years ago, search engine optimization could be examined separately. And people would argue that improving website meta tags or adding detailed title tags could be a long term win compared to bidding competitive keywords on Google, Yahoo (when its online advertising program still existed) and Bing. Nowadays, no matter whether you are an individual business owner or a corporate employee, knowing the relationship between organic search (often related to search engine optimization), search advertising (related to search engine marketing or paid search) and social media is just as important as identifying business opportunities.

Search engine optimization (SEO), in my opinion, is mostly considered as “the meat.” It includes any bits and pieces of information you place on your website or blog to help visitors (or Google algorithms) find what they are looking for easier and faster. You can identify different keywords for each page, add alt tags for images, and use different codes such as H1 H2 to emphasize certain content. Whereas search engine marketing (SEM), is more like “the bait.” Whether the format is text, images, or multimedia, the purpose of search engine marketing is to boost awareness or to increase sales. However, as consumers become more and more complicated and picky, given the amount of information they can easily find online, the companies who want to utilize SEO, SEM and social media have to make all three work as a seamless process to acquire and nurture relationships with their customers.

For example, business-to-business companies who have low brand awareness can use SEM to promote their products and services, getting new customers to take some sort of action (fill out a form, request a demo, or call a number…etc). After new customers become prospects (or leads), the company has to keep informative content on its website (SEO) to develop a long-term relationship with their customers rather than a one-time interaction initiated from paid advertising.

For business-to-consumer companies, social media usually plays a role during the customer relationship management process (and beyond), serving as another channel for information and interaction. Companies can easily outsource all their SEO, SEM and even social media projects, but they have to understand the synergy between all these concepts in order to have effective campaigns.

If you live near the Detroit area and would like to dive deeper into how different businesses can utilize SEO, SEM and social media, the Social Media Club Detroit is presenting a panel discussion on the subject on Nov 30, 2011. Four industry evangelists of SEO, SEM and inbound marketing will be sharing their experience how to look beyond tools and algorithms to tailor best practices to business needs.

Last but not least, no matter what campaigns you are planning, have a goal first. Too often companies get sidetracked by all sorts of tools and metrics and forget about the funneling process of business acquisition, retention and management. I recently attended search engine strategy summit and listened to an amazing talk about marketing strategies versus different attribution models. To learn more about what I learned there, please read my blog post at evyfindstheway.com.

Guest blog post by Evelyn Chou, Social Media & Digital Marketing Specialist

Put a Little South on Your Mouth

In my inbox this morning was an email with the subject line reading, “Nice Stocking Stuffers”. As I clicked the email open, I was thinking I would find something Christmas-themed like a small trinket covered in red, green and gold tensile. Boy was I wrong.

Now before I tell you what the “Nice Stocking Stuffer “ is, here’s a little background. The email came from a Yaffe client that is a furniture retailer specializing in the selling of quality furniture. The company supplies customers with top name brand choices like La-Z-Boy, TempurPedic , Paula Deen and more.

From that description, I’m curious as to what you readers think the stocking stuff email was regarding. But if you guessed anything having to do with Paula Deen you are most likely close! Drum roll please…the nice stocking stuffer is Paula Deen Lip Balm!

The sweet southern gal many of us knows as a butter-loving cook not only has a TV show, restaurant and furniture line, but she now has a line of flavored lip balm. Since our client carries Paul Deen Home, Paula’s furniture collection, it was only fitting that we were enlightened about the array of flavors including Peach Cobbler, Banana Pudding, Key Lime Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Pecan Pie and of course, Butter.

I would have to agree that this is an epic stocking stuffer idea, as did many other colleagues in the office and I must have some! The flavors are daring and fun and hopefully quite tasty but I would have to say the lip balm’s tagline is the best of all - “Put a little south on your mouth!"

Would you purchase Paula Deen lip balm? What other celebrity-endorsed products would you give as stocking stuffers?

Jessica Mosley - Especially excited to try the Pumpkin Pie flavor!

 

Fun Facts: Social Media Revolution 2011

Every so often someone puts together a fun, compelling video that shows off interesting facts about the new media age we're living in. You've probably seen some of them before. Today, one of the newest ones floated through my web world (meaning someone in the Houston office emailed the YouTube link to our meida director here in Detroit and she passed it on to the rest of us - yes, I still find things through email sometimes). I enjoyed it and thought I'd share it here - in case someone hadn't sent it to someone who posted it somewhere you could see it yet

It has some facts we've seen before, like "YouTube is the world's second largest search engine" and "if Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest." It also has new fun facts like "socail gamers will spend $6 billion on virtual goods by 2013 compared to only $2.million spent on real goods by movie goers." Fun stuff. Check it out.

 Social Media Revolution 2011

So, what did you think? Anything really surprise you? Hear anything interesting that's not in this video?

Mike McClure, Social Media Guy

 

How To Turn Your Worst Projects Into Your Best Products

Ever get handed one of those projects that nobody cares about? Something under the radar that just needs to get done? What do you do? Grumble and just crank something out or rise to the challenge and create something spectacular? In my experience, these kinds of projects are ripe for doing great work. In fact, my most award-winning campaign ever (for both creativity and effectiveness) was one of these projects.

Sometimes the problem with high-profile projects is the layers of approval and all the chefs in the kitchen. I'm not saying you can't do spectacular work on high profile projects. You absolutely can. It's just harder. The beauty of a project that nobody cares about is that you have the opportunity to do something out of the box. People won't try and second guess creativity on a project like that - they are surprised to see it and much more likely to accept it.

That was the case with my most award-winning project. It was a postcard size insert in Advo mailers for a drug store client of ours. The strategy was sound. Boost traffic at under-performing stores by creating a loss-leader coupon (half-gallon of milk for 66-cents, two 2-liter Cokes for a dollar, etc) and inserting in in the Advo mailer in the zip codes around the store. Sounds boring right?

Even thought the strategy was sound and the coupons were incredible values, it wasn't performing. So the assignment was basically, do something to stop people from throwing this away without even looking at it. Do whatever you want; if you can work the logo and the product in, that's great. So, instead of looking at it as a crappy mail coupon insert job, my art director partner and I looked at it as a "go crazy and do something creative" opportunity.

What we ended up doing was a series of single panel cartoons with a "Far Side" type sense of humor. For the milk coupon, if it was a 24-hour store, we showed a cow sneaking out in trench coat disguise to pick up milk so she didn't have to be milked. For the Coke coupon we showed aliens raiding a man's picnic for Cokes and him hoping he had enough to appease them. We found a good illustrator and this just do something assignment became one of the most successful we'd ever done. Not only was the creative good, but the response rates were incredible. In fact we repeating the campaign later for another drug store chain we represented. (to see each postcard bigger, just click on the image)

So, next time you get an assignment nobody seems to care about, look at it as an opportunity to really wow someone. Look at is as an exciting challenge instead of dreaded drudgery. Who knows, you might do something truly out of this world!

Has this happened to you? I'd love to hear some of your hidden opportunity success stories.

Mike McClure, Exec Creative Director & social media guy

Effective Marketing Tools & Methods That Yield the Best Returns

Thinking about your online business - of the various marketing tools and methods you use, which has yielded the best financial return?

In this article, I’m going to share my two favorite tools that I use in my business as a business and life coach for mom entrepreneurs.

My favorite marketing tool is Twitter. I get several leads a day directly from Twitter. That's why I'm so passionate about it. Let me expand a little on that, though.

In a teleseminar I hosted at MomBizCoach.com with Rhonda Hess, she explained how we should all focus on a blog as our centerpiece. Write in your authentic voice, share your thoughts, wisdom, opinions, photographs of your work or products, lessons learned from a situation or experience that is relevant to your target market, etc. and you'll start attracting readers who want to spend more time with you and ultimately purchase what you sell.

Then every time you post to your blog, you share it on twitter (and Facebook and LinkedIn, etc.) with a link back to your blog. By doing this, along with asking for and responding to comments to your blog posts, you are building relationships and increasing the "stickiness" of your blog.

I use Twitter as a vehicle to connect with people, to build relationships, and to deliver prospects back to my website and blog so they can learn more about what I do. Upon checking my blog statistics, the top referrer to my blog and website is almost always Twitter.

Twitter is, of course, a free tool, but it does cost me my time. As a mompreneur, time happens to be my most expensive and valuable asset. That said, I spend very little time on Twitter most days. I usually pop on and off for 1-5 minutes at a time several times a day. There are days I never log on to Twitter, and then there are times when the kids are in bed that I'll spend two hours on Twitter chatting with friends and potential clients. I also use several Twitter integration tools so that lots of what I tweet can occur automatically, saving me a lot of time.

As a return on my investment, I am currently getting a couple of warm leads each day from Twitter. Given my very limited work schedule of only 10 hours a week (client-facing time), this is more than enough to fill my pipeline.

My second favorite marketing tool is my BlogTalkRadio Show. I'm finding that people all over the world are hearing me on the internet and already feel related to me because of this. As a result, my prospects are ready to hire me before we ever speak in person.

People like to consume their information in different formats, so if you're not currently using audio or video as part of your marketing strategy, it would be worthwhile to consider adding these options. If you have no clue how you could integrate audio and video into an effective marketing strategy for your business, talk to a business coach or strategist to help get you started.

So what are your favorite marketing tools? Do you enjoy marketing or prefer to delegate it to someone else? Do you spend most of your marketing budget on traditional (print, radio, TV) methods or on Social Media Marketing?

Guest blog by Lara Galloway, Momprenuer & Mom Business Coach

Simple Ways to Curate Content for Your Company

Part of any content strategy for your brand should include curating helpful articles, blogs and other sources of information your community would find useful. Sure, you need to create your own content, too. But, unless you have a huge staff dedicated to content creation, you need to curate content from other sources.

Where do you find all this content that will connect with your clients and potential clients/customers? There are several fairly easy ways to keep content ideas coming to you. It may take a bit to set it up, but after that it's a matter of sifting through what's coming in and sending back out what will be most interesting to your audience.

First off, you need to look at who you're trying to reach and what kinds of information would either be interesting or helpful to them. For instance, I curate content for The Yaffe Group twitter feed. The audience here is people interested in marketing, branding, strategic solutions and in general, ways to make their business better. This group would include our clients, potential clients, business owners, business marketing department and fellow marketers. I choose from a wide variety of topics that provides information that will help these people run their businesses better.

You can also create sub-categories within this group.The Yaffe Group has expertise in a number of fields, including health care, education, retailers, non-profits and others. As I curate general marketing, branding and strategic materials. I also curate specific content aimed at these particular specialities, because there's a higher propensity for someone within those categories following us (and being a potential client).

Use eNewsletters to find content. One thing you can do is go out and find a number of eNewsletters that curate content in the specific fields you're looking for. I subscribe to over 20 daily and weekly eNewsletters for our content. Then, as they come in, I scan through to find articles I think will connect well with my specific community. A good place to start when looking for eNewsletters is SmartBriefs - they have daily emails in over 100 different topics.

Load up your Google Reader or RSS feed. Another way to find content is to search out the top blogs in your area of interest and subscribe to them. You can easily add them to your Google Reader or RSS feed. Then, check these lists occasionally and find what posts would be of most interest to your community.

Create Twitter searches & lists. You can use Twitter's search function to search a category, hashtag or key words. Try several approaches and see what yields the most potential links to interesting content. Then save those searches as a list or column in your Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. Also, create a list following other accounts that post interesting content in your areas of interest. For instance, I have columns on my Tweetdeck for companies in each of our subcategories (hospitals, retail, etc)

These are just a few simple ways to keep a constant stream of content coming your way. They take time to set up, but once you do, you can spend a few moments here and there throughout your day checking for killer content you can share.

Do you have your own simple content finding methods? I'd be interested to hear what other ways you're pulling in content that connects with your community.

Mike McClure, Yaffe Group Chief Content Provider