Another year has passed and truly the seasons are getting shorter and shorter. Simply said I am getting older and hopefully wiser. Each New Year I take a hard look back and analyze that year’s business plan and create a new one. I realize it is still is a tough economic time we are facing both from a business standpoint and most importantly how it has impacted people on a personal level. Lost jobs, homes and delayed retirements. Fortunately for Strategis we saw a solid double digit growth in revenues coming off a solid 2010. I truly have to attribute two years of growth to our strategic planning and dedicated team.

“Follow the numbers and they will determine tactics to prosperity/” George H. Irish Jr. – My Dad (And I used to think he didn’t know anything.)

A few things to keep in mind when planning for 2012:

1. Create a plan – It sounds obvious, but if I had to guess a good 30% of organizations don’t even have a simple one page plan.
2. Work on the business not in it – Allow yourself time to step back and think. I find we have the mentality that progress is defined in just moving the process.
3. Set goals high – I have always found it easier to achieve a high level of success when I am chasing a goal that might seem to most unachievable. 2012 – 100% growth in revenues.
4. Get granular – Create strategies to attain those goals and constantly measure. I can see at least 4 key areas to grow revenues 100%.
5. Plan your work and work your plan – You just have to be doggedly persistent and understand failure will not be an option.

I hope this helps and please add to my list.

I came across this app the other day: The Pokey Little Puppy. For those of you unfamiliar, The Pokey Little Puppy is one of the first Little Golden Books. It is not my favorite children’s book, however, my daughter does own a copy. I vaguely remember owning a copy. We buy most of our kids’ books second hand. At our favorite shop, there is probably thirty copies of this book. I don’t think it cost us more than $0.30 It’s one of those books you see everywhere.  So why then must we have an app for that? A $3.99 app for that, mind you.

I do have an iPhone and an iPad that my two year old uses with ease (she is much better at navigating everything on them than any of her grandparents). I should probably do a follow up post on her favorite apps for those aged under 4*.

But when I saw a Little Golden Book as an app it made me squirm.  (Unimportant side note: Our favorite is Two Little Gardeners)

Generations of children’s have grown up on Little Golden Books, and for a moment I envisioned a future where they were all electronic. No pages to rip with tiny, overexcited hands. No sparkly golden spines that stick out on the bookshelf. It’s not as though books are going away just yet, but I’m nervous at the thought.

I was an advocate for the physical book until recently. I watched my husband reading page after 10-word page on his iPhone in the dark and I’d say to him – “I’m never going to be able to do that – Read electronically.” But then I read Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential on my iPhone to try it out. I couldn’t get The Help out of the library in time for bookclub, so I snagged a copy electronically and read it on my iPad’s iBooks App. A friend came to visit and brought her Kindle (which you can now buy an ad-based version! Yikes! but I digress…), and I was hooked.

I do miss the feel of the page turning when I’m reading electronically – and therefore I visit my local library weekly to get my fix – but it is easier, more instant and, dare I say it, “greener” to own it electronically. I also realize that I only miss turning the pages because I know it. But how long before a generation is born that doesn’t know it? My daughters have dozens upon dozens of books in their book shelves and we make it a point to  swap books with others whenever we can, so I can rest assured that they will grow up knowing the feel of turning a page, and that they too might someday miss it. But that brings up another point. Borrowing and swapping. In the age of electronic books, what happens to “I’ve got a copy, wanna borrow it?”

Oh well, who’s going to want a used up, drooled on,  electronic copy of The Pokey Little Puppy anyway.

*For those of you interested, here’s Clover’s current favorite apps.

iPad:

1. You Tube  2. Intro to Letters 3. Dora & Diego’s Vacation Adventure 4. Montessori Crosswords 5. Go George Go! 6. Monkey Preschool Lunchbox 7. La Gallina Rojo 8. Kid’s Keyboard

iPhone:

1. Sketchbook Mobile 2. Virtuoso Piano 3. Go Diego Go! Snowboard Rescue 4. Dora’s Ballet Adventure 5. You Tube 6. Talking Tom Cat  7. Sliding the screen all the way to the left and typing her name over and over again into the search screen

Over the years I have found out that keeping up with all my social communications reading is more than a full-time job. I could easily spend my whole work day reading and most of all cutting through all the information that is out there.My mantra “Don’t always believe what you read”. In particularly I love the top five or top ten category of blog posts. I find them quick and entertaining to read and as a blogger the most challenging and enjoying to write. When composing a blog for this category you must be concise and hit your points spot-on. You truly have to think through your top picks and succinctly get to the point. Needles to say this suits my style and the posts I prefer to read.

One that caught my attention this week was Mike Proulx’s post on Top Five Social Media Marketing Mistakes. Mike leads digital strategy at Hill Holliday, an advertising agency based in Boston. The key word for me was mistakes. If you are like me you would rather learn from other mistakes instead of making them yourself. Mike touches on not monitoring, down sourcing to interns, not quickly responding, faking it and having an off switch or end date. All mistakes I see everyday and the post confirmed my thinking.

Here is Mike’s post: http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jun2010/ca20100617_480316.htm

“If the site doesn’t update regularly, I lose interest” – Beth V.

“If I feel like I’m reading the same stories or material over and over again, I get bored” – Barbara D.

“Honestly when I have to look too hard to find stuff I just lose interest.” – Melissa T.

“I want to see new content, not a rehashing of what I’ve already seen in other .” – Olivia C.

“There have been several blogs I follow and have just sort of burned out on.” Chris B.

“I can get the same info by reading headlines off an aggregator.” – Stephen M.

“Things that keep me interested are regular/new entries. Also, with the quick instant gratification of the internet and all the retweeting/reposting, etc, I look for the websites / feeds where I can find the info first.” – Greg B.

There’s a lot more where this came from but here’s a few more of my favorites summed up.

• The tone of what I was enjoying had changed.
• The content is no longer fresh.
• Some stupid interface change that I don’t like.
• My access is no longer ‘free’ (and I’m too lazy to create a junk email to log in with).
• I’m just too busy.
• I guess I went on vacation and when I came back, I forgot about them.

Strategis has worked on an inordinate number of social communications campaigns for Higher Education. Through testing and tracking we found some great successes, but most importantly we have found some failures. These failures can turn a great idea into a great waste of time and do more harm than good. Especially in the eyes of the folks in the Presidents Office.

1.  Having the wrong expectations

When starting any campaign we strongly suggest setting some expectations and goals. It seems when it comes to social the expectation is that it can solve all our student recruitment problems. A well planned social communications campaign should not be meant to replace your student recruitment campaign 100%; it is there to augment it. Your expectations should be to increase engagement through current students on the networks. By highly engaging those students you will drive awareness through their friends. As a byproduct of having a social communication campaign that is engaging you are able to increase enrollments, but not as a direct correlation to the campaign.

2.  No segmentation

Facebook and Twitter can’t be everything to everyone audience. You must keep in mind that what interests your Alumni won’t necessarily interest your Undergraduates. It is imperative to have segregated channels and content to match those channels. Alumni, Graduate, Continuing Education and Undergraduate should all have their own pages.

3. To much sell sell sell

We have found this is the quickest way to see your fan base quickly decline overtime. Your fan base is attempting to engage with you on a social level and doesn’t expect to get barraged with a sales message all day. They want to be informed, so provide content rich information that is useful (school events, closings, registration hours…). Your audience knows who and what you are and what you have to sell.

4. Bad customer response

This is a simple one. If someone posts to your wall or tweets you respond back quickly. They probably are looking for some quick information and would like a quick response. There is no one single best way to stop engagement in it’s tracks than bad customer response.

5. Don’t push… Pull…

Social communications is meant to be conversational and engage your audience. You should appear approachable through your content. You must foster an environment where your fans feel comfortable in interacting with you on your channels. These interactions will drive awareness which in turn drives consideration and ultimately drives sales.

As the social communications freight train turns in to a high- speed locomotive C-Level Executives are being forced to truly embrace the idea of positioning their companies in the social space. Not just for the short, but for long-term growth and sustainability. I have seen way to many general posts that speak about the utilization of social and rarely any addressed to Senior Executives. We all know their buy-in is critical! Here is my attempt to bring some light on what the C-Suite should keep an eye out for and consider.

1. Follow the crowds

You must position your company where the people are. Twitter and Facebook both have a significant amount of random content, but there is a serious side to these networks that shouldn’t be over looked. Simply said your time and financial investment must be put where people are spending their time.

2. It’s all about relationships

The day when a CEO would/could spend all day on the phone has passed us by. Electronic communications is here. Social gives you a great opportunity to build relationships and drive brand. Building meaningful engagements through corporate channels and through your own personal handles. A simple link on your email to your blog or twitter account would work. But I don’t have the time? Sure you do and you must.

3. Be an expert

What easier way to establish yourself as an expert in your field. Individuals hang onto every world of an expert and take it as gospel. A well crafted strategy and schedule will put you on track to do so.

4. Get personal

The C-Suite has been known to keep the stern corporate image up at all times. We all know you are human with a heart and would love the opportunity to see you open up. For those of you that don’t know me I work with my wife Dolores. Dolores is our CFO at Strategis and my CEO at home. I have written several posts and have been interviewed countless times on how to balance working with your spouse. My answer is always, I do what I am told. Honestly our skill sets complement each others extraordinarily well so there isn’t much overlap in responsibilities and over the years we have settled into a great rhythm. I firmly believe my transparency in both written word and face-to-face interaction has helped bring insight as to what Strategis as a company is all about.

5. Beware of internal social communications

Just as the power of external social communications can transform your business so can internal social communications. The quick delivery of ideas and instant feedback are speeding up the creative process and cutting time spent. That hour meeting can now be gone and ideas can be shared with the click of a mouse.

Some tools to consider: Google Buzz, SAP Streamwork, Yammer and how about Foursquare.

“This changes everything. Again.”

During Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference held last week, Steve Jobs (re-)introduced the world to the new iPhone 4, set to be released on June 24, 2010. According to Jobs, the latest incarnation is ”the biggest leap since the original iPhone,” and with over 100 new features and an overwhelming number of new fans, this just might be true.

Arguably, The Top 5 new features on the iPhone 4:

• At a mere 9.3mm, it’s the thinnest smartphone ever.
• While the screen remains 3.5 inches long, iPhone 4 packs 4x as many pixels (960×640) as its predecessor. At 361dpi, it has a display denser than the human retina can distinguish at arms-length, thus Jobs dubbing it the “retina display.”
• iOS 4 = multi-tasking abilities. Many.
• A major camera upgrade: 5 megapixels, 5x digital zoom, backlighting, an LED flash (finally) and the coolest 2way camera concept ever…
• Front and back-facing camera lenses, allowing for the debut of Apple video calling, or “FaceTime”, which will run on Wi-Fi and allow everyone that calls you with an iPhone 4 to see you (through the front lens) or see what you are looking at (through the back.)

So how do you get your hands on one of these fabulous little gadgets? Good luck.

With pre-ordering opening to the public yesterday, June 15, Apple out did themselves yet again by selling a record breaking 600,000 iPhone 4′s in one day, subsequently selling out, and then shutting down. With debut pre-order sales reaching 10x what they did last year with the debut of the iPhone 3Gs, both Apple and AT&T have been forced to suspend pre-ordering indefinitely.

Check out this slideshow of the 14 best tweets about the iPhone 4 FAIL.

I was recently out at lunch with a favorite client, (Hi Frank!) and we were having a friendly discussion about information overload. You know:

• 500+ email in your inbox. (or worse the mailbox is over it’s size limit)
• 1000’s of unread posts in your RSS reader
• The voicemail light is always blinking
• You are watching television – laptop on lap, iphone in hand – in case the connection is too slow.
• Can’t decide what to cook for dinner even with a boat load recipe books, Epicurious.com and Mark Bittman’s iphone app.

So I thought I’d take the time to address some of the problems we face in this super accessible world and  offer some ideas on how to get through the summer, a little smarter, and a little dumber…

your inbox is over its size limit

Condition: Work-Dizzy: Your head is spinning. There is so much stuff on your desk. Your inbox is full. The phone is ringing. You don’t know which task to accomplish first/next. Part of you wants to smash your computer. Part of you wants to go back to bed.

Solution #1: Clean your desk off. Reduce the pile of stuff. Throw away what you don’t need. File what has already been accomplished. Make a priorities list.

Solution #2 Take a lunch. (I know you don’t) Walk away from the desk. (I don’t care what time it is) Ignore the email. Leave the mobile behind.

Condition: Unread Anguish: RSS Reader has thousands of unread items in it! Email is full; Inbox has a million f*%$^ng things in it.

Solution #3: Get an RSS reader account. Google Reader is great. Now scan you emails for e-newsletters, blog subscriptions and Google alerts. Set them up in the reader; Unsubscribe to the email. Wait one month. Refer to Solution #5.

Solution #4: Accidentally click the “Mark all as read” button.

Solution #5: Put some time aside to manage Your RSS Subscriptions: Get into the reader’s settings and organize!

• Delete. I know you have things in here that you never read. I also know you have probably never done some basic spring cleaning.
• Categorize your subscriptions. Start simple. A folder for delicious food blogs. A folder for industry hot topics. A folder for local news. A folder for your Google Alerts. A folder for the competition.
• Now do it again. Get a little deeper.

Condition: Mobile Addiction: Your eyes hurt from squinting and your pointer fingers are sore. Also, your family/kids/husband/wife is/are looking at you rather crossly. When asked, you have no idea what time it is.

Solution #5: Ask yourself, why am I doing this? Unless you are a doctor you can probably afford to put down the crackberry/iphone/smart whatever and leave a few unattended emails rather than a few unattended loved ones.

Condition: Brain To Mouse Finger Malfunction : OMG! I almost sent the newest Lady Gaga video to a client.

Solution #6: Stop. Take a deep breath. You are in multi-tasking hell. You need to focus. Refer to solution #1 stat.

Condition: Hungry : You have so many options, you can’t decide what to cook for dinner.

Solution #7: Pizza.

Send us your chronic problems / solutions -  we’d love to hear them!

Success stories are a dime a dozen – but you’ll have to go somewhere else for one of those tales, because today you’re hearing from the loser.

It’s bittersweet. Our agency went through a two month review process against 10 other agencies for a prospective client (who shall remain nameless for their protection from my many, many fans.) Proudly we made it to the final two (spoiler alert: we didn’t get the account). And then I got the dreaded phone call of rejection.

I’m not looking to be consoled. I’ll hear none of the classic “you’ll get them next time Adam” or “I’m sure you did your best” or “what were they thinking, you guys are awesomely talented” (I know that already). I know … we all know, that losing sucks and winning is fantastic (you’ve seen the video on our website I assume – wink wink) I want to give a soap box to the losing side today.

From this experience I took away the following:

1. “I will get them next time” 14 years ago I would have cried (yes, I’m sensitive!), threw things (like a toddler) and cursed out the decision-makers. I would have thought it was the end of the world career-wise. Today, as I write this I am energized. We will be #1 next time. Wow, I think I have matured – or I’m really old.

2. “We kicked ass” November marked Strategis’ 10-year anniversary and I’ve ridden the ups & downs the whole time. Looking back – some of our earlier pitches make me cringe. (Please don’t email me for examples – I’m too embarrassed. Or maybe I’m saving that for a future blog post). This time was different. I rocked – the agency rocked – I am proud of the presentations we gave for this review. And, I’ll admit, this un-client really seemed impressed by us from the first meeting to the last. End of story.

3. “This was NOT a waste of time” Neither ours nor theirs. I try to put myself in their shoes. As it would be for most clients and un-clients, this was a hard decision for them to make and these folks put in a lot of time on their end. I can walk away knowing that despite not getting the account, I have developed some great relationships with their marketing teams. I’m confident that they haven’t heard the last from us, and we haven’t heard the last from them.

4. “There’s always next time” I know we made an impact. Who knows – maybe they’ll refer us to someone because they think we’d be perfect for that company. Or maybe the review winner will royally screw up.

5. ‘The rollercoaster is a lot of fun.” Even after 10 years, the ups are still really exciting and the downs still feel like a challenge.

So there you have it and the next time I write a post like this it will be me showing off my first place blue ribbon, pictures of Gatorade being dumped on me and popping some Champagne

It amazes me how many people I talk to don’t understand the power and necessity of social communications. I always refer back to your overall online presence. As a business owner, think of all the places your customer can find information on you or your company. Your website. Review boards. Directories. Social networks. Your blog. Other people’s blogs. News. Articles. Video. Pictures.

Not knowing the scope of your online presence has you missing out on opportunities for growth and networking. Regularly monitoring web presence can offer a company information on their audience, their brand, their competition.

Your online presence takes into consideration the following:

1. Your Website – First impressions mean a lot. Does your website look good? Is it user friendly? Can it be found easily? You might have an easy to remember URL, but if it takes 6 separate searches to find your company on the eleventh search engine results page – that’s not easy

2. Your Brand – How does audience interact with your brand? Are people talking about you? Where are they talking about your company? Are you in the news? Are there reviews?  Maybe people aren’t saying anything? Is that a good or bad thing?

3. Your Message – How is your message being delivered? Are you on social networks? Do you blog or Twitter? Do you interact with your audience? Are you transparent? Do you allow customers to join in the conversation? We meet lots of people for whom this is the scariest thought . . . allowing the public to interact directly with your brand. The scariest piece for them is the idea that you cannot control the online conversation, and as a result, cannot control if someone is speaking negatively about your brand. I always tell them this: The conversation is happening whether or not you choose to get involved; whether or not you choose to acknowledge it. For some companies and organizations, it says a lot about who you are and what your message is when you opt not to drive and participate in these conversations.

4. Your People – Your business is about more than just brick and mortar. It’s also about more than just your C-level staff. How do you and your staff contribute to your company’s web presence? Are you active on Social networks? How are you contributing to the online conversation? Blogging? Commenting? Are you creating content? Are you active in your communities? Are you socially responsible? Are you a Little League Coach?  You might be wondering how this is important – but think about what people might find out about you if they throw your name into Google or Bing. How synonymous is your name with your company? If you are a content generator, is it for yourself or your company? Do you blog for your company or about what you ate for dinner last night? Maybe you don’t have time to Twitter on behalf of your company, but maybe another team member can.

5. Your Audience – Are they social media spectators? Contributors? Commentator? Content Creators? Are they Blogging? Commenting? Reviewing? Are they on Social Networks? How are they active on Social networks? We have clients that engage their social networking audience in contributing content on a daily basis; others that have strictly informative relationship with theirs.

Remember this: It’s OK if it’s not all positive.

In our experience working with companies, large and small – and really, really small – the biggest fear in social media monitoring is discovering something negative and then assuming that everyone is going to see that.

Monitoring your online presence shouldn’t be scary, it should be a learning experience; a chance for you to get a deeper understanding of your audience and what role your business plays with them. Monitoring your presence should be a mandatory part of your marketing strategy as it can reveal more to a business owner than expensive, time consuming research reports.

If you ever get the chance to see Adam Cupples out and about speaking on this topic – Do it! He’s great.