The Teckki Says

I come from a large family on my mother's side, and I have dozens of first cousins. When we have a family reunion, the matriarchs have a meeting, make some decisions, tell all of the kids (us), and upwards of a hundred people come together and have a great time. But what if your family is not blood related, but part of an organization with members all over the country?

Kimberly Ransom, Director of Collegiate Scholars Program (CSP) at the University of Chicago, faced such a challenge. She is planning a reunion of alumni of the program, which is an academic enrichment program for Chicago Public School high school students. The program will soon experience its first graduating class finishing four years of college. A reunion involving this group will be a powerful experience for those who are in the early stages of the program. Ransom turned to Facebook for the challenge, with spectacular results.

Since Facebook was created for college students by college students, this medium was a natural fit. Collegiate Scholars is able to reach out to alumni across the country, 195 alums, explains Ransom. "[It was] the best way to contact [alumni] and cross-market our efforts," she says.

In building up for the event, which will take place this June, she posted memorable pictures, such as some of the students' eight-grade pictures, and communicated with confirmed attendees to get others to become friends of CSP, among other things. This helped build momentum for the event. It also builds a national network of alumni – ambassadors for CSP, those who are already in college, to be contacts and mentors, both for those in the CSP program, or face-to-face for those who attend colleges CSP alums are currently there. Current alumni at Yale University are building a Collegiate Scholars at Yale fan page. Efforts like this "will allow our alumni in seventy-one colleges across the country, seventy-one sites, to make connections", says Ransom.

When asked why she chose Facebook over other ways to advertise, she noted that an alumni reunion would be "much more difficult to do without Facebook." It saves on postal expenses, and can "quickly update a mass group at one time." She also noted distinctions over using email. The email recipient knows that they will attend, but with Facebook, everyone knows who's going to attend, and this builds momentum. This does not make her solely dependent on Facebook for marketing, however. CSP will be sending out "Save the Date cards - must use more than one medium" to advertise, she says.

While she is highly enthusiastic regarding Facebook, it did not come without its challenges. She is one of the earliest non-college student users of Facebook, just when it began to open up to users outside of the college community. CSP’s Facebook page started on Ransom's personal page, and students in the program communicated on her behalf. As Facebook developed more tools to recognize non-collegiate groups, she was able to move CSP to a fan page, and place levels of viewership and security that were not possible on her personal page, allowing her to deal with the issues of personal expression and organizational appropriateness. The amount of communication is now at a level where she foresees the need to have a person with social media skills.

For those who may be looking to use Facebook professionally, Ransom gives the following advice: "Jump in!" She notes that she did not read the manual for it, but started slow, and learned. "It is an incredible medium for social networking - building social capital. [It] builds awareness around any issue or interest. It is a level playing field. You don't have to be Oprah to reach millions."

You can learn more about the Collegiate Scholars Program at the University of Chicago on their website http://collegiatescholars.uchicago.edu.

Editor's note: Too often, I have heard failure stories of organizations using Facebook to invite fans to events, usually sales presentations, and few if any actually attend. This article gives insight why this event appears to have more success than many. Relationships were established and fostered, and momentum is built further by continual communication and the relationships between the attendees. I believe that this article should be a model for those looking to use Facebook as a tool to facilitate events.

I recently resurrected a postcard campaign and prospected for the names personally. I gathered about two hundred or so names and addresses from various sources. I also checked the websites of these businesses to verify contacts and addresses. I pondered whether it was worth it, spending hours on this when the process of sending out a postcard, and possibly having it returned cost less than a dollar a name.

In that same week, I did a presentation on email marketing. I wasn't really sure that I wasn't putting this group to sleep until I mentioned that you cannot just put someone on a email list without explicitly asking for permission to do so, even if you know the person. Wow, did that get their attention! A very lively discussion ensued, because this had been done by several in the audience. We've all gotten email addresses from customers, business cards at an event, or from inquiries to our websites. From my understanding of the CAN-SPAM act, the federal law governing advertising to someone's email, you have to ask everyone you intend to market to via email. What this actually meant was why the discussion was so lively.

Both of these stories involved lists, marketing lists in particular, but there's more.

I got a call from my hosting provider regarding this very domain, betterwebdesignandgraphics.com, about driving more traffic to the site. His intention was to sell Search Engine Marketing. I turned him down for a couple of reasons.

First, I market the blog primarily through email marketing, which is how many of you get to this blog. Second, the blog has been submitted to the search engines, and it has been successful. So successful, in fact, that I get many comments from visitors. I also get a lot of spam, which shows up as email alerts waiting for me to approve posting. I have a policy that does not allow for postings to occur automatically. This policy keeps the value of the blog high in your eyes, allowing you to see only useful comments from others. The policy prevents needless exposure to advertising that I did not approve of beforehand, and especially have not been compensated for.

Because of the policy, I know who is on my list.

There are times when quantity is better. Those times are when the attention is focused primarily on you and what you are providing. Radio and TV come to mind, especially if the program focuses on what you do. The same is true if you are the subject a news article that discusses a topic in which you provide a solution for. Quantity not only helps, but it matters!

There are other times when quality is better. I ended up with a final mailing list of about 110 businesses, after getting down to approximately 150 from an earlier cut of the original list. For the sake of an argument, I would guess that I saved about a dollar or so a postcard, factoring in time, postage and materials, saving about $40? Was this worth the trouble? To answer that question without qualification, no, it wasn't.

But by evaluating nearly 150 websites, I also got better mailing information on at least a dozen more contacts, along with eliminating twenty or so names I actually had on the list that made the second round. Without the research, better than a third of that list I started out with was probably bad. I made some judgment calls on some others, but I have quality contact information.

Better yet, I know who is on my list.

I think that it is all to easy to create a list and send out a bunch of advertisements. If the cost is low, like it can be with postcards, email marketing and cold calling, unqualified lists require numbers to make them work. Not having a list to begin with requires even more numbers, as in the case where too many of you join social networking groups, try hard to make a make a thousand friends, and blast them with advertising. We also want Search Engines to do the job for us. Search Engines work, but the trick is not getting on the first page so much is having getting people to look for you. It helps to have a list.

Better yet, it's a good idea to know who's on your list.

The strength of a list will be illustrated in our feature article - Virtual Invitations, Concrete Acceptances, which is the feature article in a continuation of our series: Social Media, Are They Business Ready?

Over the years businesses and organizations have flirted or experimented with a number of social networking sites. From bulletin boards and chat rooms to Facebook and Twitter, electronic networking has evolved from the technical proficient to the what-did-we-do-without-it world. I've been to many packed seminars where excited evangelists preach the benefits as if they were holding tent rallies. "This will revolutionize your business and increase your sales," or "this is how you reach the next generation," they bark. With audiences filled with first-time entrepreneurs, continuing technophobes, and outright Luddites, messages like these resonate. With less cash and more work as the result of flattened organizations, many of us are looking for anything, a spark, gold nuggets, any lead that will get us to the next day and beyond.

Is social media our savior?

The quick answer is no.

The long answer is that is probably part of the solution.

I, like many of you, have dabbled if not delved head first into social media, with varying degrees of success. Some mediums, like email marketing and blogging, I am a devotee. Others are still in various degrees of experimentation, amusement and outright indifference. Some will eventually be integrated, others ignored. Still others presumably have potential, but it is not yet obvious from a business sense to me. To the preachers in those churches, I continue to sit in the pews, appreciating the message, but I remain firmly among the unconverted.

This does you no good.

In following posts, I will present articles with interviews of people from businesses and organizations who are using social media to enhance their communication and marketing efforts. I know that most of you have tried or want to try some or all of the various social networking media, and many of you have experienced many varying degrees of success or failure. Some of you have found it a huge boost to your efforts. Others have quit too soon.

Over the next several months, I will cover social mediums of main concern - Facebook, Constant Contact, Linked-In, YouTube, Flickr and others. Some of these stories will come from people just like you. Others will come from you.

I invite your questions, comments and thoughts. In many cases, you are more of an expert than you think. Most of us don’t have the zeal of an evangelist and we tend to fence-sit rather than become part of the flock. However, an enthusiastic congregant is someone we can relate to, the person who can help us make the choice by being an example we can relate to. You can be the witness someone needs to walk down the aisle and commit their lives to the conversion.

Then the real work begins. Enjoy the articles.

In a series of articles exploring the use of social media for businesses and organizations, this first one will cover Facebook.

Have you used or are you using Facebook for business?

I interviewed a couple of business persons who I knew used Facebook in their businesses. While I’ve heard the stories we’ve all heard of successfully lucrative connections and the potential to reach millions, the stories I am hearing from many main street businesses is a mixed bag of results. Are businesses better for trying and using social networking media? Yes, and I say that emphatically. Are they better off? While the recession has been obscuring the picture somewhat, many whom I talk to always wish for better results.

Darryl Crawford, owner of Kimbark Coin Laundry in Chicago, has been using Facebook since the Fall of 2009, and has over 150 fans on Kimbark Coin Laundry’s fan page. He has found that the experience has been mixed. "You have to go out and do other things. You have to drive people to your website, then hit them with product [sales. Facebook is] still used for social," says Crawford. Although he’s not sure how much business it has brought in, he realizes that his venture with Facebook has a long way to go, "We're like pioneers trying to figure it out," he says.

Sid Barsuk, of Barsuk Group, Inc, has been a Facebook user for about a year. While he is not actively promoting his business on Facebook, he has had remarkable results. He began his experiences into social networking as purely social, starting out with Classmates.com, connecting with old friends. He eventually to migrated to Facebook. About a year ago, he was contacted by a former student of his Facebook regarding a project.

Barsuk, who is active in the Chicago Southland Chamber of Commerce, pursued this as a chamber project at first. At some point, Barsuk and his former student discussed other areas in they could collaborate, and a contact was drawn up. He's been working on the project since mid-August. If it goes forward, it will mean significant business for Barsuk Group, Inc.

Barsuk is obviously enthusiastic about Facebook. "What do you have to lose? It doesn't cost anything but time and effort - it's one more avenue of getting out there," he says.

Crawford puts a perspective on all media that is worth taking note, "Your website should be the centerpiece," he says. He states that all other pieces, email marketing, Facebook, blogs and twitter, should draw people to it. It is a perspective typical of the way most marketing efforts work, traditional or digital. "Facebook will get people's attention. It won't do what many people expect," he says.