Bootup Entrepreneurial Society » Social Marketing Kung Fu, Purple Belt with Dave Olson
Photo by Kris Krug
On Wednesday, April 27th, I sat in on my first startup talk at the Bootup Garage. Dave Olson, Director of Marketing at Hootsuite, came in to do his third talk in a series aptly named Social Marketing Kung Fu (#smkf).
In January, Dave started off with Social Marketing Kung Fu, White Belt (Maura’s notes from that session arehere), then in March, he came in for the Yellow Belt – “Listening Everywhere” session.
Dave is always a joy to listen to – I’ve seen him speak at a few different conferences – so I was eager to hear what he had to say in session number three: Social Marketing Kung Fu, Purple Belt – Release Day. His talks are always full of interesting tidbits and useful information, and this one was definitely no different.
I jotted down a few notes to share with you, but you can also find Dave’s notes on getting your Purple Belt here.
What to Release
- Should be something substantial, or a few things bundled together and released around the same time.
- Code names for product releases are always smart, as they’re memorable.
Know Your Coverers
- Reach out to the media that you want to cover your story: RT them, comment on their stories, add them to twitter lists, etc.
- Get to know them, and what they write about.
- Personally invite them to join your media e-mail list.
- When you send them info, make their life easy. Respect their time.
- Spoon feed them the story, but never be condescending.
Craft Stories
- Take 3 important talking points, and craft them into different forms.
- Tell them why your story matters!
- Get quotes from your customers, not your CEO (unless it’s a special circumstance, where a quote from the CEO is appropriate).
- Putting a boiler plate “About” section at the bottom of a press release is unnecessary and a waste of space. Link to your website/blog instead.
- Tune your vocab. Make it active, not passive. Lose the buzz words, and keep your vocab as consistent as possible.
- Include image(s) to support your story, so they use your image and not their own.
Line up Dominoes &/or House of Cards
- Constantly keep your media kit up to date. If you have one page on your website, this should be it.
- Thursday before the release: Send an internal memo to your team to share the master plan. Include your 3 main talking points, who you’re telling, and why it matters.
- Monday 1PM: Local press release, & media preview e-mail. Include assets, like an infographic, if possible. Make them feel like they are getting the story first.
- You can also send a preview e-mail to your key clients, to keep them in the loop, and ultimately, make them feel special.
- Tuesday 5AM: Scheduled blog post. Make everything point here, so it answers any questions people may have. This way you are controlling the conversation.
- Next comes Twitter & Facebook updates, a general e-mail to clients, and a wire release (with links, tags, etc.) Keep the Facebook update light and airy. You don’t want it to become your main feedback channel.
- Tuesday 9AM: Make sure your dominoes have fallen into place! You can also update any LinkedIn groups, Forums, Q & A sites like Quora, Formspring, etc.
- Tuesday 11AM: Optionally, you can host a webinar, an hour at most, to go over any details that go along with the release.
- Schedule any interviews requested by the media.
Then…
LISTEN
REPLY
THANK
SHARE
REPEAT
Prepare for the haters
- If you comment on articles right away and thank the author for sharing your story, you may prevent a good portion of negative comments, because they know you’re there listening.
- Prepare some stock comment copy for the trolls, so that you don’t take their criticism personally.
Finally
- Thursday: Send a News Round-up. Share your favourite coverage from the release. If someone has created a video tutorial on your product, make sure to include that. Don’t forget to trackback to those articles.