Early last year, McDonalds created the Twitter hashtag #McDStories. The restaurant chain wanted to introduce “some of the hard-working people dedicated to providing McDs with quality food every day.” What happened next was one of the biggest corporate blunders in social media (Twitter) history. Twitter users turned McDonald’s hashtag into a bashtag, using it to promote their own stories about the fast-food giant — and those stories weren’t exactly the happy, endearing tales that the company had hoped for. Here are a few selected by London’s Daily Mail as among the best that appeared on the first day of the campaign: @JohnGarrett tweeted: So PETA and McDonald’s got into it today. I was surprised. I didn’t know there was real meat at McDonald’s. #McDStories @JKingArt: Lost 50 pounds in 6 months after I stopped working & eating at McDonald’s. #McDStories @SkipSullivan: One time I walked into a McDonald’s and I… read more

If you’re among the business owners or executives who got interested in social media marketing because of its potential to deliver new customers, you may be overlooking some important “hidden” benefits of social media marketing. Overlooking these benefits can be a problem, because it usually takes time to build your social media presence to the point that you can link it reliably to sales.   These “hidden” benefits, however, often kick in before your numbers show a direct sales return on your social media marketing investment – and they can be valuable enough to offset the costs involved in growing your social media presence over the long term. For instance, have you thought about the power of getting instant feedback from your social media community? You can find out almost instantly what challenges they face in using your products, what they like and don’t like about your products, your policies,… read more

Prince’s performance at SXSW last month got us wondering why some companies are still partying – that is, marketing – like it’s 1999. The digital world has undergone dramatic changes in the past 15 years, and some of the marketing tactics that were commonplace back then can do a world of damage today.  For example, before the CAN SPAM act in 2003, it was common go buy or rent contact lists to send unsolicited emails as part of a digital marketing campaign.  Doing that today is unthinkable – for good reason. Are there any other outdated marketing tactics in your current marketing plan?  Here are some tactics straight out of the 1990’s that we’ve seen lately from companies marketing to us. 1. Telemarketing programs that seem to call people randomly – at dinner time or on a cell phone – and ask them to buy products they’ve never heard of. … read more

The 17th December version of Facebook’s Pages Terms previously prevented any kind of marketing in the cover image, and text was not allowed to comprise more than 20% of the image area. Page owners had to compromise by making sure that they advertised within the page and tried to creatively draw in consumers. However, it seems as though the Pages Terms Platforms changed overnight and simultaneously opened up a great method for marketing. Previously, or at least until March 20th, the Page Features determined under subsection B (Cover) that cover images may not include: images with more than 20% text; price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it on socialmusic.com”; contact information such as a website address, email. mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section; references to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow point from the… read more

People make mistakes, and so do businesses. Social media marketing is one place where it’s all too easy to make mistakes that can have long-lasting effects on your social media strategy or company reputation. There are many kinds of mistakes that can hurt your social media strategy, but here are five that can actually ruin a social media strategy. They’re easy to make, and difficult to overcome. Luckily, they’re also easy to avoid if you know what to look out for. Mistake #1: No Long-Term Commitment We see it all the time: a company gets all excited about their brand new Facebook page, their new blog, or their sure-to-succeed Twitter and LinkedIn efforts. Check back a few months later, however, and the pages look almost the same as they did when the project started off so hopefully. Sometimes this mistake is linked to the myth that if you build it,… read more

Two of the major social media networks – Facebook and Google+ — are rolling out significant changes this month in the way they look.  So far, most of the press has focused on Facebook’s changes.  We’ll be taking a look at those changes, but for today, we’re going to look at the major new visual improvements to Google+ profiles and pages. Google+ is the most important social media platform that most people never use. Even though there are over 625,000 new users on Google+ every day, and people press the Google +1 button five billion times per day, it can be hard to find someone outside of the pros at places like The Marketing Zen Group who visit the site regularly and know how to use it to its full potential. In fact, in a study conducted by Google, 70% of marketers said they need to learn more about Google+. … read more

It seems like just yesterday when the goal of a social media marketing campaign was simple: to find a new way to get a client’s message in front of potential customers.  Now, social media is interwoven with the fabric of our daily lives in ways that seemed far-fetched just a few years ago. And marketers have to offer much more than novelty to get and keep customers’ attention. If you haven’t taken a close look at how the digital world has changed in the past few years, it’s definitely time to update your digital marketing strategy.  The reason is simple: what worked last year probably won’t be enough this year. The Four-Screen Generation Moira Davis, Vice President of Marketing at ESPN, describes the four-screen generation this way in an informative video that is part of Google’s “Think with Google” series: “Google research shows that the average consumer spends about 4.4… read more

Wadhwa, Hitendra. “Lessons in Leadership: How Lincoln Became America’s Greatest President.” Inc.com. Post written by Paula Gean. What’s the coolest part about working at the Marketing Zen Group? Aside from staying on the cutting edge of web marketing, we get to use that knowledge to work with some of the coolest clients out there. One such client is The Institute for Personal Leadership. In their most recent webinar, The Power of Paradox, Dr. Wadhwa briefly explains how extraordinary leaders unlock their full potential. Both in the digital world and the real world, leadership is essential to society. So, what does good leadership encompass? Who is better in leadership roles: Introverts or extroverts? Extroverts relish social settings, enjoy conversing with strangers, and don’t shirk attention.  Yet, these same desirable traits can also be detrimental.  If someone is always speaking, they’re not listening.  If a person is seeking to be social, they’re… read more

Let me let you in on a little secret about content marketing: you need more than content to get the results your business needs. Of course, a smart content marketing strategy includes: A great website with content that delivers what customers and prospective customers want An active blog with posts that deliver valuable information that people want to read Social media campaigns with a good ratio of other people’s content vs. your content And, of course, content that isn’t solely focused on your products, and is actually being read or viewed by the target audience. But that isn’t enough to translate content marketing into sales. You also need a way to translate people’s enjoyment of your content into a desire for them to buy. What you need is to put the tried-and-true ACT Methodology into practice to turn your content marketing into a sales magnet. In her best-selling book, The… read more

While Facebook Graph Search is in essence a search engine, it’s fundamentally different from the traditional search engines. Google and Bing searches return results based on what the search engine’s “spiders” find when they crawl through a website. Facebook Graph Search, however, is all about who you know, and how you interact with your friends and fans. So if you’ve been applying standard search engine optimization techniques to your Facebook page(s) and profile, it may be time to rethink your strategy. Facebook says that its new Graph Search is all about connecting people with information that other people are already talking about on Facebook. So it’s technically about who knows you and your company – Graph Search makes connections from public pages and friends’ shares.  What does this mean to businesses that use Facebook? It means that your fans have instantly become a referral marketing force for your business –… read more