DesignWise Studios of Door County – Web Marketing, Inbound Advertising, Social Media, Website Design, Video, Facebook

Twitter is unveiling new design features that will include brand pages for supporting advertisers.

Everyone has been wondering how Twitter will begin to monetize its traffic volume. Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts are already a part of the Twitter business model. A promoted Twitter account is featured in search results and within the Who To Follow section, Twitter’s account recommendation engine that identifies similar accounts and followers to guide users to discover new businesses, content, and people on Twitter.

Soon, Twitter’s Enhanced Profile Pages will permit brands to display their logos more prominently, let them “pin” tweets to the top of their timelines and have selected tweets automatically expand to display YouTube clips or other content. These are just a few of the new features announced along with 21 initial beta brand partners launching Twitter Business Pages. Brand pages for nonprofits and individuals are on the way.

As small businesses become more familiar with new techniques of engagement using social media marketing tools, they are allocating more time to engage their target audiences. That’s the findings revealed in the latest November, 2011 report from marketing specialist Constant Contact. A full 81 percent reported using social media to market their businesses, up from 73 percent in the spring of 2011. Click for the Key Findings of this report.

Twitter is quickly regaining ground as usage surged in the last six months, from 60 percent in spring 2011 to 76 percent in November. Effectiveness scores also improved across certain key social media marketing channels in just six months, with 60 percent of those using Twitter finding it effective for marketing their business, up from 47 percent in spring 2011.

Infographic by Constant Contact

The following is a recent example of DesignWise Press Release copy writing services.

Below is the exact and complete message as delivered to targeted print and broadcast media contacts. We use our DesignWise Constant Contact email manager account to maintain a private media contact lists and to publish and distribute our PR. This permits us to track the open rate and the click-through links. Then, we report this back to our clients regarding the success of each campaign. The story is an example of creating authentic earned media, a method of advertising that I feel far outweighs purchased advertising in both cost and effectiveness.

PRESS RELEASE – For immediate release

November 14, 2011

Contact: Lori Manns
Phone: 920.615.4646
Lori@psychiclori.net
www.PsychicLori.net

Psychic Lori
133A S. Erie St.
DePere, WI, 54115

Gallery Readings with Psychic Lori in Milwaukee at the Brumder Mansion on Sunday, December 4

Psychic Medium, Lori Manns returns to Milwaukee’s “romantic” Brumder Mansion Theater on Sunday, December 4 for Gallery Readings from 7 – 9 pm.

Psychic Medium, Lori Manns

The first psychic experience that Lori Manns can recall took place at the age of five. She was in a classroom when she saw her Kindergarten teacher’s father standing next to her on the first day of school. She told her new teacher that a man was standing next to her and that he was trying to tell her that everything is OK. Lori did not realize who the man was at the time, and before her teacher could respond, they were interrupted by the School Principal.

Lori’s new teacher hurriedly left the room after speaking briefly with the Principal and did not return to the classroom for approximately 2 weeks. The next day, a substitute teacher explained that their regular teacher would be away for a time as her father had unexpectedly passed away the day before.

The next 30 years of Lori’s life was full of similar such experiences, comprised of her mediumship and psychic nuances. In her early 40s, she decided to begin refining her natural gifts of psychic awareness and spirit communications by enrolling at The Arthur Findlay College in London, number one metaphysical college in the world. There she was regarded as exceptionally intuitive.

Following that, she abandoned her “day” job and became a full-time professional psychic medium. Now, she travels all over the USA and Canada doing private readings, house parties, business conference appearances and guest spots on various broadcast media channels. Most recently she was in Milwaukee at the annual Brumder Mansion Halloween Hunt.

“We had such a wonderful and paranormal Halloween at the world-famous Brumder Mansion, that I have been asked to return for a series of Gallery Readings” says Psychic Lori. “While they call it romantic in the official guide, it’s almost effortless to dig deeper into the ‘historical’ aspect of the Brumder B&B to find out that it is considered to be one of the top paranormal hot spots in all of Wisconsin.”

According to Haunted Places to Go, “It has been established that there are at least three ghostly spirits in the mansion that are believed to be intelligent hauntings. This basically means that they are able to interact with the living. It is said that the spirits are welcoming, though if experienced firsthand, they may be a bit frightening, simply because they may catch you off guard.”

With that in mind, you are invited to stay the night in order to experience Brumder to the fullest by reserving one of their 6 beautiful suites. All of the rooms have fireplaces and are surprisingly reasonable, ranging from $89 – $169 per night – with 4 of the 6 suites having hot tubs. But, enjoying the accommodations is not a requirement in order to join Psychic Medium Lori Manns for Gallery Readings in Milwaukee at the Brumder Mansion. All are welcome, but seating is limited to approximately 50 persons. Tickets are $40 for the 2-hour session. Reservations are recommended and are easily secured  by calling the Brumder front desk at 414.342.9767.

Psychic Lori will also be providing half-hour and one-hour private readings (at $65 and $120 per person) by appointment before and after the Sunday Gallery Readings and again on Monday. Please, email Lori@psychiclori.net or phone: 920.615.4646 to secure your spot.

Brumder Mansion Bed & Breakfast is located at 3046 W. Wisconsin Avenue, a main street that runs from downtown Milwaukee, past Marquette University and runs parallel to I-94. Brumder Mansion is on the corner of North 31st and West Wisconsin, in the historic Concordia District. Call 414.342.9767 with questions, to RSVP for the Gallery Readings or for room reservations.

Contact Psychic Lori by email at Lori@psychiclori.net or phone: 920.615.4646.
Join in the conversation… www.facebook.com/PsychicLori.

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High-res photos are available for download in 300 and 150 dpi Mac tiff format at:
http://www.psychiclori.net/press-photos/

On the morning after Door County’s windstorm, author Wayne Breitbarth was in Sturgeon Bay at Glas to present a dynamite lecture with step-by-step instructions on how to maximize LinkedIn for business… too bad only 4 people were able to get there to benefit!

The "LinkedIn Guru" Wayne Breitbarth

But, I was one of them and I came equipped to deal with the dilemma. With Wayne’s permission, I recorded the entire event on HD video and will share the highlights at our next Social Media Breakfast Door County event on Wednesday, October 19 in Ellison Bay at Brew Coffeehouse. Proprietor, Jennifer Lee is baking a coffee cake, which will be available at 9 am for a 1/2 hour of socializing. The presentation will begin at 9:30 am and will include large-screen projected videos and a discussion of Wayne’s 6 Power Tips for LinkedIn. The presentation was exceptional at Glas, and I look forward to sharing it with you.

A business leader himself, Wayne Breitbarth is an owner of M&M Office Interiors in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. Prior to his involvement in the office furniture business, he spent nearly twenty years in the automotive industry. Wayne is also the founder of Urban Promise, a youth mentoring program that brings together business professionals and high school students in Milwaukee Public Schools.

As a LinkedIn expert, he has inspired audiences at many of Milwaukee’s most prominent companies and organizations as well as nationally, at conventions, industry association events and corporate training sessions. Wayne’s diverse business experience, pragmatic teaching style, and infectious sense of humor have earned him the praise of the press, branding him as the “LinkedIn Guru.”

Wayne is continually asked to speak at Executive Agenda (EA), YPO and TEC meetings as well as CEO Roundtables, where his thirty years of experience as a business owner and manager enables him to help his peers understand how social media can benefit their companies.

“LinkedIn does many things really well, but based on my personal experiences, feedback from my audiences and my semiannual LinkedIn user surveys, the three things LinkedIn users find most beneficial are researching, networking and marketing,” says Breitbarth. “The moment we get our profile up, most of us old-school business folk want LinkedIn to produce lots of sales. Well, that’s probably not going to happen. On the other hand, those people who are spending time improving their researching, networking, and marketing techniques are certainly seeing an increase in their sales.”

Wayne has compiled his tactics in a new book, “The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success: Kick-Start Your Business, Brand, and Job Search” (March 2011, Greenleaf Book Group). His book is a simple, user-friendly guide aimed at the experienced business professional who is either skeptical about LinkedIn or looking for ways to more effectively use this cutting-edge tool.

“Have a well-defined, documented strategy so you can measure your results or forget it. Your time would be better spent enjoying your favorite hobby or leisure activity,” says Breitbarth. “It doesn’t bother me when someone comes to my class and says, ‘Great, I get it now, but I don’t see how it will work for me; so I am going to pass.’ Bravo to that person. At least he is on to the next new idea or thought about how he is going to grow his network and business.”

Check out his book for yourself by downloading a free chapter at: www.powerformula.net.

“The combination of Wayne Breitbarth’s passion for the power of social networking and his real-world business experience, deep knowledge, mastery of LinkedIn and his skill as a trainer make the ‘The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success’ a real standout.” – Frank Martinelli, President of the Center for Public Skills Training.

You can email SMBDC founder, stephen.kastner@smbdc.com or call 920.256.9449 with questions on SMBDC’s monthly meetups taking place at various, random locations all around Door County. More information is available online at SMBDC.com and at www.facebook.com/SMBDC.

Click to RSVP if you want to and invite your Facebook Friends…

Steve Jobs, who never graduated from college, died at 56 years of age on Wednesday, October 5, 2011. Here he reflects on that part of his life, his career and his own mortality in a well-known commencement address at Stanford University in 2005.

So many people including myself, have such a huge debt of gratitude to this singular man.

Steve Jobs helped to shape this world by believing, “that you can’t connect the dots by looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Here is that memorable 15-minute speech courtesy of Stanford, and a transcript that you might like to follow posted below:

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then, I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. And so at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life’s gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And, don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about Death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and thankfully, I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It’s Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the Bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Social Media Breakfast Door County launches its second year of off-season training and informational gatherings with noted author and LinkedIn expert, Wayne Breitbarth at Glas Coffeehouse in Sturgeon Bay on Friday, September 30 from 9 – 10:30 am.

The "LinkedIn Guru" Wayne Breitbarth

Wayne Breitbarth has instructed more than 10,000 business people on how to effectively use LinkedIn, the professional networking site, since he began moonlighting as a trainer in early 2009. A business leader himself, Wayne Breitbarth is an owner of M&M Office Interiors in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. Prior to his involvement in the office furniture business, he spent nearly twenty years in the automotive industry. Wayne is also the founder of Urban Promise, a youth mentoring program that brings together business professionals and high school students in Milwaukee Public Schools.

As a LinkedIn expert, he has inspired audiences at many of Milwaukee’s most prominent companies and organizations as well as nationally, at conventions, industry association events and corporate training sessions. Wayne’s diverse business experience, pragmatic teaching style, and infectious sense of humor have earned him the praise of the press, branding him as the “LinkedIn Guru.”

Wayne is continually asked to speak at Executive Agenda (EA), YPO and TEC meetings as well as CEO Roundtables, where his thirty years of experience as a business owner and manager enables him to help his peers understand how social media can benefit their companies. On Friday, September 30 from 9 – 10:30 am the Social Media Breakfast Door County (SMBDC) group will feature Breitbarth, revealing his Power Formula for LinkedIn success and a few of his advanced LinkedIn techniques and strategies in Sturgeon Bay at Glas, the Green Coffeehouse. His diverse business experience also allows him to share real-life stories and illustrations as he educates, motivates and entertains audiences across the country. There is no charge to attend.

“LinkedIn does many things really well, but based on my personal experiences, feedback from my audiences and my semiannual LinkedIn user surveys, the three things LinkedIn users find most beneficial are researching, networking and marketing,” says Breitbarth. “The moment we get our profile up, most of us old-school business folk want LinkedIn to produce lots of sales. Well, that’s probably not going to happen. On the other hand, those people who are spending time improving their researching, networking, and marketing techniques are certainly seeing an increase in their sales.”

Wayne has compiled his tactics in a new book, “The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success: Kick-Start Your Business, Brand, and Job Search” (March 2011, Greenleaf Book Group). His book is a simple, user-friendly guide aimed at the experienced business professional who is either skeptical about LinkedIn or looking for ways to more effectively use this cutting-edge tool.

“Have a well-defined, documented strategy so you can measure your results or forget it. Your time would be better spent enjoying your favorite hobby or leisure activity,” says Breitbarth. “It doesn’t bother me when someone comes to my class and says, ‘Great, I get it now, but I don’t see how it will work for me; so I am going to pass.’ Bravo to that person. At least he is on to the next new idea or thought about how he is going to grow his network and business.”

Check out his book for yourself by downloading a free chapter at: www.powerformula.net. He will have copies available at Glas for purchase and signing.

“The combination of Wayne Breitbarth’s passion for the power of social networking and his real-world business experience, deep knowledge, mastery of LinkedIn and his skill as a trainer make the ‘The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success’ a real standout.” – Frank Martinelli, President of the Center for Public Skills Training.

You can email SMBDC founder, stephen.kastner@smbdc.com or call 920.256.9449 with questions on SMBDC’s monthly meetups taking place at various, random locations all around Door County. More information is available online at SMBDC.com and at www.facebook.com/SMBDC.

In the following 36-minute video, Matt Mullenweg, shares a bit of history from WordPress’ evolution and then looks into its future in this year’s State of the Word address.

A survey was issued to the WordPress community, which resulted in more than 18,000 responses. Of that number, 2,800 make their living through WordPress, and consultants are charging an average of $58 per hour. This year, 22% of newly registered domains are running WordPress.

Towards the midpoint of the conversation, Matt talks about stamping out the Fauxgo (false WordPress logo). If you need to use an official WordPress logo, here is a great variety of official W logos.

As video continues to gain greater prominence, we are starting to build dedicated YouTube channels for clients as part of an overall social footprint campaign. Today YouTube announced the publication of YouTube Creator Playbook, a 70-page ebook that will be regularly updated…

DesignWise Studios of Door County Get a free copy of the new 70-page YouTube Creator Playbook helping you build your video audience online. They promise regular updates… very cool! 5 hours ago · Like · 2 comments

So, this post is serving a dual role: announcing the ebook and also testing this cool little tool called SocialDitto, that lets us embed Facebook posts and comments into the body of an article.

“Technology is enabling trust between strangers.” – Rachel Botsman

Rachel Botsman writes and speaks on the power of collaboration and sharing through network technologies, and on how it will transform business, consumerism and the way we live. She is the co-author of “What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption.”

She says Gen Y is growing up sharing… in a world where uses trump ownership. You don’t want the CD, you want the music that’s on it. You don’t want to own a drill that you will probably only use for a total of 13 minutes overall, you want the hole that it drills.

“Someday we’ll look back on the 20th century and wonder why we owned so much stuff,” says Time journalist Bryan Walsh in 10 Ideas that will Change the World.

I don’t want this book. I want to know what’s inside it… hahaha.

The era of interactive choice and the emergence of vast social networks marks the end of Tell-and-Sell advertising, replaced by authentic Word-of-Mouth sharing, comments, reviews and ratings.

Andy Sernovitz teaches word-of-mouth marketing to the biggest brands and to thousands of entrepreneurs and small businesses. He is a popular keynote speaker and CEO of GasPedal and Socialmedia.org. He is also the President Emeritus of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and teaches word of mouth marketing at Northwestern University. An 18-year veteran of the interactive marketing business, Andy has spent years helping companies learn how to do fantastic marketing. He taught entrepreneurship at The Wharton School, ran a business incubator, and started half a dozen companies.

I get his regular tips via e-mail and today’s #242 covers, “How to get employees involved in word of mouth.” It deserves to be shared in full:

The people on your payroll can be a powerful word of mouth force if you equip them with the training, the tools, and the motivation to do it right. How to get started:

1. Give them guidelines
2. Give them tools
3. Give them status

1. Give them guidelines

Create simple rules and guidelines for your employees on how to engage with fans and customers. It’s not about creating restrictions, it’s about straightforward education on how they can participate in conversations about you honestly and ethically — and most employees are happy to be shown the boundaries. And when you do, start by teaching these 10 magic words: “I work for _____ and this is my personal opinion.”

2. Give them tools

To help your talkers tell friends about you, you need to put tools in their hands — and your employees are no different. Try giving them coupons, friends and family discount codes, leaked information, beta tests, or product samples. And when you find something that really gets your employees sharing, there’s a good chance it’ll work for your external fans too.

3. Give them status

Want your internal experts to get more involved in online forums or industry groups? Declare them your company’s subject matter experts on the topics they know best and help them get involved in blogging, online communities, events, or local groups. Or on a larger scale, try creating an ambassador program that gives employees the product expertise (and the VIP status) to go out and engage customers on behalf of your brand.

Free Social Commentary Triage Poster

The #1 step requires establishing a set of company-wide standards, providing employees with a set of guidelines on how to interact as a spokesperson for the organization on social media. We have created the DesignWise-Social-Commentary-Triage Poster that outlines a step-by-step set of guidelines to help staff evaluate and respond to “the good, the bad and the ugly” in social media posts and comments. Now, it’s up to you to create #2, the tools and #3, the rewards.

If you want more great tips from Andy Sernovitz on word-of-mouth marketing I suggest getting a hold of a copy of his book, Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking.

Seth Godin: Sliced bread and other marketing delights…

“The otaku, the passionate obsessive, the information age’s embodiment of the connoisseur, more concerned with the accumulation of data than of objects, seems a natural crossover figure in today’s interface of British and Japanese cultures. I see it in the eyes of the Portobello dealers, and in the eyes of the Japanese collectors: a perfectly calm train-spotter frenzy, murderous and sublime. Understanding otaku -hood, I think, is one of the keys to understanding the culture of the web. There is something profoundly post-national about it, extra-geographic. We are all curators, in the post-modern world, whether we want to be or not.” — William Gibson, Modern boys and mobile girls, The Observer, Sunday 1 April 2001

LINK:
NetProspex Social Business Report: A comprehensive report on the use of social media by business people across the US.

“A feed is a function of special software that allows feedreaders to access a site, automatically looking for new content and then posting the information about new content and updates to another site.” – The WordPress Codex

“The Web has moved from viewing to doing.” – Google

The DesignWise marketing theory has been in synch with this observation for more than a few years. My own role has shifted from being a design “guru” to being a collaborative coach, seeking to empower and release the creativity at rest in each of my clients. Content is still king…  Websites gain tremendously from generating fresh content. But now, all of our latest designs are about delivering the tools that enable our clients to create their own content, building a broad social footprint.

“Smart” design is no longer about erecting information silos that people must come to visit. Now, it’s vital to get your content out over the wall so it can spread virally and be seen, “liked” and shared in other social places: ported over to your Facebook Business Page, sent to LinkedIn, fed to widgets, automatically pulled into other Web pages or embedded into an infinite number of personally customized newsreaders. But, none of this is possible without a content management system (CMS) that generates a Really Simple Syndication feed, aka RSS. If a Website fails to generate an RSS feed, it’s like a radio station without a broadcast antenna. You might as well be talking to the Great Wall… instead of tossing a note to someone on the other side.

In the early days of XML, you could manually generate and upload an RSS feed each time you updated a Website with new pages of content. It would take 10-15 minutes every time, but why spend that time when it can be done automatically by applying the right tools? WordPress, Joomla and other CMS tools update and broadcast their RSS feeds automatically. This is just one of the many reasons I have been using WordPress as a development platform, linking the RSS site feed to Facebook pages, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Here’s a comparison example of a site I originally built for Door County’s Parkside Inn using standard HTML and a bit of Flash animation. In 2011 we redesigned all of it creating a new 2.0 version of Parkside Inn built using WordPress software as the CMS.

Search engines respond better to the new tags, and story content and they now get “pinged” whenever there is new content. This is because the new version generates multiple RSS feeds. The feed is also connected to the Parkside Inn’s  Facebook Fan Page. The new site includes WordPress plugins for social sharing, spam filtering and another which automatically re-formats the entire Website in a mobile-friendly format when called up by any handheld device. The WordPress CMS also encourages site visitor engagement with built-in comment and response capability. And… the client can login anytime with a username and password to add and update the Website content at will.

“Comparing Websites is a good way to learn about Website quality analysis – which is the final arbiter.”