We were recently named one of the top 60 PR peeps to follow on Twitter by Social Media Today. We came across the list by accident, via a Google alert, but were pleased to be included. There are a ton of good PR peeps on the list, we agree. So if you are looking for great ones to follow, see this list.

I am astounded at number of companies I see that are looking for an intern (often unpaid) to fill their social marketing needs for themselves or for their clients. Please don’t get me wrong-I have nothing against interns. In fact, I have had some talented ones and adore them. But companies are completely missing the point: the best social marketing is orchestrated via a plan, and should be a coordinated marketing effort by someone experienced in social marketing. If done right, it will compliment the marketing taking place elsewhere and marketing is always more effective when all components compliment each other.

In less than a year, I have gained almost 10 k followers on Twitter. Now, there are other people who have gained more of a following than in close to that same time period. I am certainly not THE authority on Twitter following.  But there are others, on Twitter about the same length of time, who have a thousand followers or less. Some may intentionally be keeping it small and some may not have a goal of a large following, but it is a difference that should be noted.

I’ve seen the same thing happen on Facebook. With the right components and interaction, a group or page in a year’s time can grow with very solid numbers. If those components aren’t used, groups and pages will sit with a few members and not accomplish the marketing goals that the company wants to see.

Gaining a large following, if that is your goal, takes time, dedication and some expertise. And when you are paying someone with experience, you are not just paying them to tweet on your behalf-you are paying them to:

1. Build a market for you online.
2. Provide their expertise on the best way to do that and the best places for your company to have a presence.
3. Provide branding of your company or clients.
4. Consult with you on the best way to accomplish the goals and the best way to tie the social marketing in with other parts of the plan. (priceless)
5. Sometimes provide online customer service as appropriate.
6. Have a hand in the quality of service your company or clients are providing.
7. Provide a “front-line” and immediate presence/impression of your company or your client.

My friends, it is so much MORE than tweeting. Trust me on that. If you truly want impact and results from your social marketing, invest the dollars. It will pay off.

GMA producer on the right and Julie on the left

Today we welcomed a Good Morning America Weekend team to the Cannon Beach Farmer’s Market. The producer was extremely complimentary about our little town and was enthused to discover that we are very friendly folk. She said, “and I don’t think it’s even because we are with Good Morning America!” It was quite funny as we reassured her that here on the Oregon Coast, we are truly genuine and friendly people.

Off course, I tweeted all about the experience and my followers enjoyed hearing about the farmer’s market and the visit.

In addition to the Farmer’s Market, the camera crew and Producer visited Haystack Rock (extremely low tide today), Indian Beach (great for surfing) and Ecola State Park. They also visited with local artist, Richard Gorsuch. They said they were able to get great footage of Haystack Rock in particular.

We will keep you updated to let you know when the segment will air.

Thanks Good Morning America Weekend for the visit! Hope you truly enjoyed your time here.

Haystack Rock

There is only one day a year when beach parking is allowed in Cannon Beach. That is on Sandcastle Day. The sheer overflow of cars on the streets would likely close the town down so it is allowed that one day as visitors pour into town to see the amazing creations made of sand.

I have a formal complaint. Sandcastle Day is always held in early June and the last three years in a row, it has been a cold experience. Take today for instance. It was overcast and chilly. And of course on the beach you can increase the chilliness ten-fold when you take the wind into account. I have personally heard people say they don’t attend because of the chill and I admit that I always go home sooner than planned for the same reason. My sister in law with small children agrees.

Why do they have it in early June? Well, Cannon Beach schedules it then on purpose. They want to bring in tourists during this time when tourists often don’t come because of the risk of colder weather. Who wants to plan a trip to the beach and have it rain all week? Very few.

It does work of course. Sandcastle Day is a big event here and there are people that attend every year and spend their money in Cannon Beach.

But attendance has been dropping the last few years and because many I talk to say that the weather is a deterrent, I am seriously wondering if this marketing move on the City’s part was the best one. (I should note that I don’t believe that is the only reason for the dropping attendance-there are other factors I won’t discuss here).

Granted, weather on the Oregon Coast is never a guarantee. But I can tell you that you have a much better chance of sunny skies in August and September.

So why not make it a certain weekend every year a little later in the summer? I wonder if attendance would once again increase?

P.S. These pics are from previous years as my camera broke this week.

A conversation with a major network this past week really got me to thinking. It’s been a little while since I have been on TV and when I am, I rely heavily on my improvisation skills, people skills and natural wit. =)

Preparing other people for television appearances is part of my job when my clients are heading for a TV spot, whether it be for a commercial or an interview. And when I look at the industry, I don’t see a lot of information out there that can help prepare people for being on camera. I see a need there–especially when I see Twitter friends like ResourcefulMom (Amy Lupold Bair) post: “I’m getting ready to go on TV! Is there anything that I should know?”

It made me want to laugh. Not at Amy of course. But just because it’s an unusual, but glorious experience for most people. And unless you are on TV a bunch, you will probably get slightly high in the afterglow of it. It’s a bit like being on stage, you see. And most anyone enjoys being center-stage here and there. You won’t get the applause immediately afterward (unless you, for instance, trip on a cord going off set), but people will see you, and if you become a regular you become high risk of being recognized at the grocery store. Which means that you shouldn’t run up to the store in sweats and a ponytail-unless you really, really want to.

Before I digress too much, I must say that there are likely books on this subject that I am not aware of. And if not, one should be written for sure. I certainly cannot post all of my TV Tips in one post. But today I would like you to be aware that most everyone on camera occasionally or for the first time really needs to look at any nervous habits that they brought with them and cut them out.

Common nervous habits on TV, especially when being interviewed, include:

• Foot bouncing
• Playing with hair
• Playing with anything
• Nose rubbing
• Picking cuticles or nails
• Continuous shifting
• Crossing/Uncrossing of legs
• Clearing throat
• Verbal repeats that make you look DUMB like “Um”, “Ya”, “Okay”, “Uh huh”…over and over again

I suggest that before filming, you take a tip from Speech 101 and videotape yourself either making a speech or in a practice interview. Have family and friends be an audience if you want. When you are done, watch it several times and make a note of any weird or nervous actions/speech patterns. Then videotape another segment. The more you watch yourself, the more aware you will become of what your nervous habits are. It is the first step to controlling them when you are filming.

Please help me get rid of any nervous ticks I have by commenting after you watch the video below. Thanks!

As you know, when I see good marketing happen, I like to get very analytical and dig into it to discover how it happened. My writing friend, Mary DeMuth (a Christy Awards finalist), just launched a successful new book called Daisy Chain. This fiction book addresses a topic close to my heart-abuse by leaders in the church. It was riveting.

Julie- Thanks for meeting with us, Mary! I have seen a social marketing tour, a trailer on YouTube, spots on your site dedicated to the book and your blog for Family Secrets where people can post their family secret anonymously. Why did you choose these options for marketing the book?

Mary- Thankfully I received a marketing scholarship via Cec Murphey, which allowed a new connection with an outside PR person and an outsourced marketing expert. They really helped start all the balls rolling on several fronts. The marketing guy, Jim Rubart, helped me with the My Family Secrets idea.  Twila Belk is doing Texas-specific PR for me. Also my friend Tina at  did an excellent job on my social media/blog tour as well as the You Tube video. The team at Zondervan has been amazing as well, sending books hither and yon, helping with the launch party in a local independent bookstore, and securing interviews. It does take a team to launch a book! But if this were just me by myself, I’d probably be limited to a blog tour.

Julie- What avenue (so far) for sales has been the most effective?

Mary- Probably the most effective thing I’ve found is to send requests to my email list (sparingly), letting folks know about Daisy Chain and how they can help. Today my Inside Renewal ezine releases (sign up in upper right corner on my website). There I highlight a really cool idea a friend of mine devised. Here it is, for those of you who want to try it with your books: Pay it forward!

Here is the great marketing experiment, concocted by my friend Pam. She felt she couldn’t write a review for “Daisy Chain” because she was intimidated by all the writers who had written reviews here. So she said, “Mary, here’s what I’m going to do. I have three books. I’m going to give them to friends with this caveat: If you like the book, you can have this copy for free, but I’d like you to pay it forward by buying a book for a friend who you think would like it. If you don’t like the book, just return it to me.”

So you can accomplish this by:

* Giving the book to a friend.
* Saying it’s free (but if she doesn’t like it, she returns it to you)
* If she likes it, she keeps it, then agrees to buy another copy for a friend.
* She tells her friend the same thing. And the Daisy Chain begins!

If you do this, let me know. I’d love to somehow track this.

Julie- What avenue helped to connect you the most with readers of the book?

Mary- Right now it seems to be My Family Secrets. Recently I had a reader thank me for putting up the site. He/she didn’t say why, but I sensed there was something in one of the stories from the site (and there are many!) that resonated and perhaps started healing.

And this weekend I learned about another Christian leader arrested for being abusive to his wife (very similar to what’s going on in Daisy Chain). So the fact that the book exposes a very real issue makes it connect with people.

Julie- In this economy, more and more authors are implementing their own marketing and PR. How did you decide what to run yourself versus sourcing out?

Mary- Again, I have to say a huge thanks to Cec and his nonprofit foundation for selecting me (and others) to be recipients of the marketing scholarship. I couldn’t have done it without that. If I didn’t have that, I would do everything on my own, as I am not rolling in the money (It makes me laugh when folks assume authors are rich!).

Julie- You’ve mentioned meeting with a marketing person to help you hone your mission and methods. Can you tell us more what this accomplished for you?

Mary- I worked with Wildfire Marketing for several months in their mentoring program. This was amazingly helpful. Rob helped me understand the business aspect of being an author, and he helped me develop Turning Trials to Triumph, which really is my life message. I became a lot savvier, more focused, and I started making more steady income as a result of my time with him.

Julie- Thanks Mary!

Joe Lamp'l and Julie Bonn Heath

I’ve received a few requests lately for social media training or assistance. Some of the requests have been from other PR or Marketing Firms because they either want to learn more, or they have a client asking to make it part of their plan.

One of those firms doesn’t want to implement it in their agency-instead they want to hire it out to someone else. Another firm wants to learn more in order to implement it and the third agency has a small social presence, but wants to increase it because their clients are requesting it.

This week, Joe Lamp’l asked to meet with me as we were both going to be at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show.  He started on Twitter a couple of months ago and has a small following.  He twittered that I am a “social marketing expert” and that he had so many questions, I would be happy to be rid of him! LOL!

Ah yes, he was a ton of fun and we had a great time. Of particular concern to his business partner was the time that social marketing takes and how much time Joe could commit to it. Joe makes appearances and teaches at seminars all over the nation. He also appears on television shows, films podcasts and writes books. He is a busy guy. I will tell you what I told him: social marketing is super essential for him to build on what he has already started. It will do nothing but benefit him and a few hours a week commitment to it can make a big difference.

All of this got me to wondering about many things. But mainly, should your PR/Marketing Firm have a social platform themselves?

I believe that they should.

Here’s why:

1. More and more, clients are seeing the value of social marketing and requesting it as part of their PR or Marketing Plan.
2. A firm (or PR Pro) is the most effective when they have experience in the specific components of the Plan. And of course, this doesn’t just include social marketing.
3. If the firm has a platform developed, it will increase the client’s trust that the firm can effectively implement (or monitor) a social marketing plan.
4. An established social platform for the firm also gives the client another way to research the effectiveness of the firm, their response to crisis control, customer satisfaction and more.
5. A social marketing presence provides an already-developed audience/market for the product, service or person that the firm is representing. And they are a market who likely already trust the firm, have somewhat of a relationship with them and therefore trust the firm’s recommendations.
   
6. A social platform gives the firm a real-time method of connecting quickly with massive amounts of people for assistance or collaboration on the plan as needed. For the client, it can have the benefits of holding an instant focus group or conducting a survey.

Jon Newman is one of the marketing professionals I’ve met in the past few months who usually provides “old school” marketing. But Jon recognizes that it is valuable to learn and implement modern methods of PR. He asked questions of those of us on Twitter who do believe in and promote social marketing and he blogs about his continuing learning curve.

Kudos, Jon.

I got yelled at on Twitter the other day because I retweeted some bad economic news. Well OK, she didn’t YELL at me but she did tell me publicly that it was wrong to tweet the negatives and discourage everyone. I explained my side–if we don’t know about it we can’t fix it. I truly saw it as just passing the news on that another major company was laying off employees. Someone had passed it onto me in the same fashion and I appreciated hearing about it. My follower said that sometimes she wonders if the reason “things are so bad” is because people keep passing on the bad news.

I messaged the person on Twitter and apologized for upsetting her–and thanked her for being passionate about what she believed in. And I explained my side of it and why I had tweeted it. We worked it out (agreeing to disagree) and she later mentioned that she lost a few followers after she had publicly confronted me.

I work in journalism as well as PR, and I wrote an article a few weeks ago that received a similar reaction from someone else. The whole article was pretty positive until I repeated some news from one store that their traffic was down for that day compared to the day last year.

In my eyes, it was “news” and I was reporting what I was told. I remain highly concerned about the world’s economy and I felt that, if they could, the public would ask how the economy was affecting sales. I certainly was curious. But for someone else, it was discouraging and “might affect” future sales.

I don’t think that the definition of news has changed. News is still news–both negative and positive. And part of my job at times is to report that (although granted, it is not part of my Twitter job description and please do know that my tweets on there are 90% positive ones). When I am reporting news, I am not providing PR services which yes, should always be positive. I am reporting as a journalist, and it is a completely different ballgame.

What I do think has changed is our ability to deal with all of the economic news. People who are discouraged about the economic situation are having a tougher time dealing with it and perhaps some people are even fighting to stay upbeat during this time. To them, a tweet about “even more bad news” can have a negative impact. It is important that we also understand that.

I will be very honest with you and tell you that it has affected me too-as well as every other business I know. I’ve lost some clients due to the economy and had other clients reduce services. It’s tougher right now to get new business as well. I suspect that it will only get worse. Yes, the full picture can be discouraging.

A friend and I were talking tonight about the subject and we  agreed that we don’t know if the economy will (or even can) get better. And then we even spatted a little about our community needing a food bank. He doesn’t really believe we have a need here. I disagreed. And then I asked him to volunteer some hours there when we get it opened.

His reasoning? We have so much here in America compared to third world countries. Until we experience multiple families living in one room and a daily diet that consists of a couple of rice bowls only–we aren’t really starving like he feels it is portrayed  But, in his opinion, we might well be headed that direction.

So I apologize to any that I have upset when I pass on bad news and understand that there are a variety of opinions. Please know that I am a “fixer”, as my friend called me tonight, and my to-do list of things “to fix” in my head is about a mile long. Vocalizing something is the first step in working together to get to that fix-whatever that might be. I certainly don’t mean to hurt you in the process.

Twitter friend, Marc Warnke, contacted me this morning and asked me to help spread the word about a new post on his blog. The post is called “How I Grow Relationships on Twitter” and agrees with my Twitter philosophy of relationship building as opposed to direct sales on social marketing sites.

I was initially drawn to befriend Marc on Twitter because of his “family first” philosophy. But I have also learned since that there is much more to him than that. He has a passion for the “right things” in life and I will support that as much as I can.

Here are some of the things that Marc does right (I’m sure there are many more but these are ones that I know of and that stand out to me):

1. Although he is making a splash, in particular on Twitter, he is humble. His response to me when I asked if I could borrow a picture and post about him was “I am honored and humbled”.  Now, if you haven’t guessed, those are absolute magic words because they show not only humility-but they show that Marc sees value in the person asking. This is also something I see other truly great peeps on Twitter doing. (I don’t mean the ones who think they are great!)
2. Marc is real on Twitter and in his communication with other people. He is authentic and helpful to people. He logs on, I suspect, to be a resource-and he fulfills that not only by helping peeps and answering questions-but by following up with them to make sure their question was answered. Many of us try to be a resource-but how many of us actually follow up? Follow up also shows someone that they are valued.
3. Marc has CHOSEN to be a Family First Entrepreneur and he has put a name to what many of us have agreed with for ages: there must be a commitment to put family before business. Family is at the root for many of us and those geared toward business-first often lose their families in the process. Someday, those people will realize that the trade-off was not worth it. You don’t have to be that person if you make the right choices now. When you are lying on your deathbed only two things will matter (your spirituality and your relationship with those you are leaving behind).

Marc is a speaker, life coach and an author of the book, “Options not Obligations“. And although I don’t normally feature people on my blog, he is truly making a difference and worthy of note.

View Marc speaking here: