I like it when I see a local Lake Tahoe business doing a good job with their social media marketing efforts. In addition to our Once a Month Who’s Doing it Best in Lake Tahoe in Social Media and Digital Marketing Series, I’m going to feature a local Lake Tahoe business in our Tahoe Thursday series. If you can think of any, let me know in the comments section or send me an email milena@outandaboutmarketing.com.

Today’s spotlight goes to Tahoe StandUp Paddleboards.

I’m not going to review their website today. I like what they have done with it. I’d like to concentrate on their social networks instead. Some of them are well linked from their website. (Good start) and some I had to look for. (Constructive criticism here – I had a hard time finding their youtube channel).

Let’s look at each one:

Facebook

Active and engaged feed with good interaction with other companies.

Great custom profile photo.

Excellent use of the custom tabs. I particularly liked the Team Tahoe SUP custom tab with my friend Whitney Wall featured at the top. Great way to bring personality into your brand.

Other tabs worth mentioning are the 2012 boards, telling us what to expect, the welcome tab and the Explore Project.

Overall, a visually beatiful Facebook page. Great job! Can they get even more engagement and likes and perhaps introduce Facebook commerce?  Do they have a well put social media strategy in place? If you want to check your Facebook EdgeRank score for free and establish a benchmark for the company, Facebook Edgerank Checker is a good free tool to use for that. For more detailed Facebook Analytics and intelligence, hit me up.

Twitter

Twitter is one of my favorite networks. The Twitter account for Tahoe SUP didn’t disappoint visually. Great custom background image carrying our the brand with urls to other social networks and website assets.

A quick check on Klout shows Tahoe SUP at 21 with topics of influence of construction, plastic and surfing. What is Klout? Klout has positioned themselves as the standard of influence on the web, a very interesting and controversial topic of conversation. They give you a score of 1 to 100 and the higher your score is the most influence you have on the web. They also analyze your conversations and tweets and assign topics to you they believe you are influential in.

With a fun sport like paddle boarding I would imagine that Tahoe SUP can do a lot better on Twitter. To see the entire Twittalyzer dashboard for Tahoe SUP, head over to the this link. Sure, Tahoe SUP can do better with their twitter activity but at least they are not cross posting Facebook to Twitter as many bigger brands wrongly do. (More on this in another post).

YouTube

The Tahoe SUP YouTube account is also customized with their brand. With 8 videos and 31 subscribers, I’d venture to say they can definitely improve their video presence. Although, they are fairly active with 8,635 views to their channel.

I loved their video on paddle boarding with dogs in Lake Tahoe with the dog whisperer as featured on National Geographic. Nicely done. Who doesn’t like going out on the lake with the dog and enjoying the outdoors.

and finally the Tahoe SUP Blog

Prominently featured right on the home page, Tahoe SUP has an active blog. One thing I couldn’t figure out was how to leave a comment on a blog post but maybe I just missed it. If I didn’t, adding comments to the blog will be a good improvement.

I particularly like the integration of photos, videos and the team within the blog. It makes it easy to look around and get a feel for the sport before you jump both feet into it. And as a passionate paddle boarder, I highly recommend it.

Overall, Tahoe SUP is doing a good job with social media. I’m sure they have limited resources to spend online and if their products are flying off the shelves already, then I’m sure they are analyzing what makes the most sense for the company. I see a lot of opportunities and potential to grow their business and connect with paddle boarders around the world.

I hope spring comes soon and we can all go out and enjoy the sport. I know I can’t wait to grab my Tahoe SUP and go out.

Thank you to everyone who came to listen to me. You are absolutely wonderful people and a great audience. As promised, below are my 3 presentations from the event.

1. Influencer program – every company needs to have one of them. It’s the smartest program you will develop to have your core advocates promote your product. Their program reads: “Our Influencer program is designed to connect us with you – core enthusiasts that embrace prAna’s company values. Our goals are to open a dialogue for product testing and development ideas; promote ideas of health, wellness and sustainability; and create a community for like-minded people to share their passions.” Create a community of like-minded individuals is exactly what every company needs to be working on.

2. Customer service – Superb! They understand how to treat their customers and make it their mission to have satisfied customers. Under promise and overdeliver is what great marketers do.

3. Products – Excellent quality, great fit and made to last. Everything I have ordered fits and looks great. Start with a remarkable product and you will build a strong customer base with word-of-mouth. Great marketers know that remarkable products get people talking.

4. Story – every company needs a story that people will remember them by. I like Prana’s. What is your story? Is it on your website?

5.  Website – clean design, friendly, well organized, light and encouraging dialogue yet built for the primary goal of selling clothes. Well done.

6. Design and branding – from their catalog, to their photos and logo design Prana has done a fantastic job of providing visually appealing images and collateral to their target market.

7. Customer engagement – Prana is currently looking for T-shirt designs from their customers. I like the name of their contest: How does PRANA look like to you?. An email went out to their influencers too, asking for submission of their favorite clothes. Upon sending your favorite item to Prana, you receive free shipping. Nice little incentive to gather valuable feedback from their most loyal customers.

8. Great causes – Prana is dedicated to support Natural Power Initiative. It fits perfectly with their values.

9. Social – Prana has an active blog, a very popular Facebook page, lots of views on their YouTube channel, and a decent Vimeo channel. I wonder what their social media strategy is but in terms of engaging their fans, Prana scores high in my eyes. One suggestion would be to implement a social purchase incentive, where if you recommend Prana product to friends at the time of purchase, you immediately receive percent off your purchase. Take a look at how Abe’s Market is doing it.

10. Ambassadors – I’m not sure how anyone can become an ambassador but I’m sure if you are interested, you will get a fast response from Prana.

Prana has passionate people who have created a great product and have figured out how to build legendary marketing.

Have you purchased any Prana clothes? Are you going to after this post? Do you have any favorite companies?

For those of you that are not aware of the situation described here, the original post is located here. After a few Tweets with the Chrysler Twitter team and the blog post, I was personally contacted by Chrysler’s Customer Service department which was definitely a step in the right direction.  A few emails and phone conversations with them later, they offered us to replace the truck, and expedited the build and the delivery. The end result is, we are back in a new Dodge truck we absolutely love and very, very satisfied with the way Chrysler handled the entire process from the initial phone call.

I would specially like to thank the Chrysler’s Twitter team and the Customer Service Department at Chrysler Corporation with one individual whose name should remain a secret for privacy issues. This person completely understands customer service and acts on customer’s behalf. Everyone we had contact with at Chrysler believes in the power of social media and how it could affect a company of their size.  I hope to be able to generate ten times more positive outreach for them than the original negative post I wrote.  Based on this personal experience, it’s clear to me that Chrysler is committed to delivering great customer service.

A few lessons learned from this:

1. Social Media has provided a new medium for people to voice their opinions and corporations now need to listen and respond accordingly in new places.

2. A company should be consistent across all channels when it comes to dealing with customers. Certainly, social media participants may expect a much faster response than a snail mail or telephone call but they should all receive the same customer service regardless of the channel used.

3. Only 2% of people will voice their opinions online. Perhaps there’s a need for more “citizen journalism” and people fighting for their rights as consumers which will put more pressure on companies to stay engaged online.

Thank you Chrysler! You kept us a loyal and happy customers. Well done!

This blog post is way overdue. It happened two winters ago and I just haven’t gotten around to write about it. It absolutely impressed me as a situation where clearly a company “Gets It”.

The company: The company is Ralph Lauren and more specifically their Polo Blue Cologne Fragrance. They created a brand new campaign to help launch their Red, White and Blue product line.

Photo Credit: JustBeMagazine.com

The Concept: A special edition under the Polo Blue franchise inspired by the Ralph Lauren Spirit and the icy invigoration of winter sports. Experience a fragrance celebration of exceptional athletic achievement. Come “push the boundaries” of BLUE.

The Promotion: Ralph Lauren teamed up with Warren Miller film tour and showed their product to 250,000+ moviegoers right before an incredible skiing and snowboarding footage from around the world. They created a 30 sec film combining the new fragrance with exciting skiing and snowboarding scenes. In addition, they had the product available for people to touch and smell prior to going in the movies. More promotions included YouTube video, Twitter contest, Facebook and newsletter promotions.

I participated in their Twitter contest initiated by @SkiingExaminer whom I have been following for a while and trust. I retweeted a short message from the company announcing the product in connection with the upcoming Warren Miller movie premiere.

The Results:

1. Established authenticity for winter sports positioning.

2. Sales increased 70% at Macy’s and 50% at other retailers for the week following the movie premiere.

3. Created excitement among youthful audience.

This so far looks like a well thought out and executed marketing campaign. Great product, good positioning and good tie in of traditional and new media.

What Impressed me?

Following the Twitter contest I was notified that I had won the product and it’s on its way. I completely forgot about it until 2-3 weeks later I received a package in the mail. Inside the package there was the new Ralph Lauren Red White and Blue Men fragrance. In addition, there was a ladies Red White and Blue fragrance bottle and a handwritten note from their Marketing Director. The note said: Dear Milena (Yes, that’s me) Thank you for participating and congratulations. We are including an extra fragrance bottle for you (they figured it out who they are sending the prize too; extra bonus). We hope you enjoy the new fragrance. Sincerely, Ralph Lauren Marketing Director. Did I mention it was a handwritten note? You bet it made me feel very special and appreciated. They way every company should make you feel if they want to keep you as a customer.

I was so impressed with the results that I tracked down the contact information for the Marketing Director from @SkiingExaminer and asked her to send me some information about the campaign to include in my blog. That’s how I know what the campaign generated in the Results section. She sent me an entire PowerPoint presentation with impressive slides, numbers and examples from the campaign some of which I have used in this post. This blog post is the least I can do to show my appreciation for a big brand that “Gets It” and tell you how a big company can actually be personable.

Ralph Lauren obviously gets what it takes to make people feel special. Do you do the same? Share some of your stories here in the comments section.

I’ve been seeing him for over 15 years now despite of changes in dental insurances and 45 min drive to the office one way. He’s one of these older, nice gentleman who can make you feel very comfortable.Even in the dentist chair.

What I like most about this dentist is his attitude towards his clients and his high and I mean really high standard for customer service.

Dr. Donald Orme (in Truckee, CA) by far wins my award for customer service for a local Lake Tahoe business. He knows how to treat his customers and by that I don’t mean keep their teeth healthy but treat them with respect. He understands what it takes to make them feel good, how to make things right and how to keep his clients happy.

He “gets” how word-of-mouth and referrals work and he practices it every day. I wished more Lake Tahoe small and large businesses would learn from Dr. Orme and apply his unwritten policy: Do whatever it takes to make the customer happy.

I wrote a review about him on DentistDig. If you end up going to see him, feel free to write your opinion as well.

Have you run into a good or bad customer service experience lately? Leave a comment on this blog.

It’s 2010 – Is your business social?

Do you need help figuring out how to best use social media marketing for your business? Do you want to understand how to use word-of-mouth online to compliment your traditional and online marketing efforts. Are you new to social media? Do you need justification for yourself or to your boss that social media is not just playing on Facebook? Do you think social media is some type of black magic and only young people really get it? Do you know how to deal with a social media crisis or prevent one? Do you have a social media policy for your employees? A social media strategy? Proof of return-on-investment?

I’ll try to answer all of these questions and more at the interactive 3 hour workshop at Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation, Incline Village, Lake Tahoe on Oct 7th. Book your calendar, save $10 from not buying a coffee at Starbucks for 3 days, and come hear real life case stories, learn from successful small Lake Tahoe businesses, and best of all learn from each other on how to use social media to your advantage.

Word of mouth is the best marketing tool in your tool box. Social media just helps spreading word of mouth by making it viral. Are you taking advantage of it? Can you afford not to?

It’s hard to speak in public.  It takes time to prepare a presentation. I promise you I will do my best to not bore you for one minute. We are going to have a lot of fun! Get ready for this high energy, 3 hour session. Bring your questions. Bring your friends. Bring your Starbucks coffee. But be there!!! I know I can count on you! All proceeds go to Parasol. I make nothing from this event except for the pure enjoyment of spending time with you and sharing information and knowledge.

Click on the link below to see the flyer with more information about the event. Post it on your wall. Mark your calendar. Please, RSVP to Parasol directly, the gracious organizer of this event.

Social Marketing Workshop Flyer

Photo credit: PeterSpain.com

This is one of two posts on how small businesses can use social media to their advantage. I got particularly interested in paddleboarding and decided to track the entire process of how social media is affecting the bottom line of a small business.

Adrift Tahoe is located in Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe, CA and they offer rentals, sales, fun special events and merchandise. It’s all about paddleboarding and surfing with very friendly staff.

My interest in paddleboarding started with a Facebook post by a friend – sharing her excitement about this addictive and fun sport. I decided to check it out for myself. It is a great sport, an excellent full body work out and a phenomenal way to spend summer time on the water in Tahoe.

I offered to create a short video about the shop and the sport and post it on YouTube. See it below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So far, I know that I have hooked a few friends and family members on the sport. They are interested in getting more involved, would like to purchase paddleboards and continue to spread their passion about paddleboarding in Lake Tahoe.

The second blog post will tell you how a Facebook update and a You Tube video delivered real dollars for this business. Interested? Stay tuned. Whether you are a small business or a big one, are you able to identify dollars from your social media efforts?

Have you tried paddleboarding yet?

A year ago I embarked on a new journey with Out&About Marketing. The results have been very,very positive. I accomplished many of the goals I set for myself and learned a few lessons along the way. Overall, I have no regrets and I’m proud of the accomplishments.

Thank you to all of my clients who keep me on my toes, open my horizons and challenge me to learn more. You are all the best!

Thank you to all of my readers who visit my website, read and comment on my blog. Let’s keep the conversation going.

I learned so much throughout the year thanks to all of you – my clients, my readers, my social and real life friends and the hundreds of new friends I met online.  It’s been an absolutely incredible and motivating journey. Here are 10 lessons on starting a business, marketing for small businesses and social media marketing a year later:

1. The busier you are, the more you learn how to prioritize and optimize. I learned how to filter and aggregate content and how to go from spending hours online to only a few minutes a day. Social media can be a huge time investment. Learn how to manage your time and balance your day. And the most important skill of all is to learn to balance work with life. I have to say I managed to stay sane and have sufficient time to play and enjoy my life outside of ” computer time”.

2. Learn to elliminate 80% of the time you spent on unnecessary and non-important tasks and concentrate your effort on 20% of the things that are truly important for your business and for your life. It’s hard some days but you can do it. Limit your time to what’s truly important and get rid of everything else.

3. Social networking is great and really works when done correctly. One of my biggest appeal to social networking is the opportunity to make friends in real life. It’s rewarding to know you met someone on Twitter first and eventually you got to shake their hand in person. Introduce people to each other. Never forget that the Internet just opens the door for real relationships and true networking.

4. Never stop learning. Pick a tool each month and learn it. Maybe it’s WordPress, FourSquare, Evernote, Dropbox or Groupon. Whatever it’s the latest and greatest tool, invest time in learning it and seeing how it applies to your digital life or business. Don’t jump at all tools at once.

5. Every 6 months revisit your business plan/social media/marketing strategy and adjust as necessary. It’s one thing to have a plan. It’s different to actually follow it, measure your goals and adjust your strategy. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Learn from it and keep moving. Don’t waste too much time on worrying about being perfect. No one is.

6. Celebrate. Small things matter. Set monthly and weekly goals that you can measure and when you achieve them, congratulate yourself. Set the bar higher for the following month.

7. Create a compelling story. People don’t care about your product. They will identify with a good story and if they believe it they will consider purchasing your product. Don’t just sell them your stuff. Provide interesting and engaging content. Ask yourself not what you are going to gain from social networks but rather what are you going to contribute. What’s your story? How do you fit it?

8. Find your niche. Find your niche and your voice. What are you knowledgeable about and have an expert opinion on? What do you know that people want to know? What can you be the “google” of? Without a very targeted niche approach your marketing will get lost. Start small and think big.

9. Before jumping in social media – educate yourself. Read blogs, learn new tools, develop a strategy and adapt it. After a few months revisit your measurements and adjust as necessary. Start small and grow your efforts as you become more proficient with each network. Social networking works. Period. But don’t expect to see overnight success in terms of sales. Be patient. You didn’t wake up one day to a full house of kids. Or maybe you did. Most likely you went through the dating stage, the wedding, and eventually the kids. It’s the same with social networking.

10. What are you passionate about? Do you have passion for what you do? Can you carry your passion online in your blog, tweets, Facebook updates? They say Content is King. If you don’t have passion, content will be a chore. If you have passion, get yourself a Flip camera, start a blog and start producing quality content. You will start building an audience. Just remember #8. Find your niche.

What would you like to get from Out&About Marketing? How are you using the site? What advice do you have for the blog and for me? What is your biggest marketing and social media challenge?

Thank you for your feedback and for your time. Now I’m going to celebrate being one year old!!!

Sliding on The Cheap turned to Out&About Marketing for help with social media. Kevin Tinto, a great businessman and founder of Sliding  on The Cheap could see the potential for using social media for his business. His website, http://slidingonthecheap.com offers discounted skiing and snowboarding lift tickets, ski&stay packages, ski deals, ski shop sales,  ski resort events and killer deals from around the country. Sliding on the Cheap has solid email following (30,000 subscribers+) and many businesses report a spike in phone calls the minute their newsletter goes out. Kevin, who lives part time in the Bay Area and part time in Truckee is a hard core skier and really passionate about skiing, snowboarding, motorcycles, wakeboarding, biking and anything outdoors. He’s determined to spread discounts and insights from the ski resorts to his loyal followers and help making skiing and boarding more affordable – a great idea in this economy. If you are not already a fan of his newsletter, join today and watch for it to hit your Inbox – you are guaranteed to read something that you will like and use for your next ski/board adventure.

Here’s what Kevin Tinto said about this custom created social media strategy for Sliding on The Cheap:

“As one of the largest Ski/Snowboard informational services with more than 30,000 weekly email subscribers worldwide,  we sensed that Social Media was critical to the continued growth and success of our business, but had no idea how to implement on a large scale.  With limited knowledge of this new medium, we turned to Milena Regos.  Her charge:  Develop in a matter of weeks, a complete and professional Facebook and Twitter Strategy. Within two weeks of launch we had 345 Facebook Fans and we are adding new Fans and Email subscribers daily.  We fully expect to add thousands of email subscribers by season’s end, and expand our business in directions we couldn’t have even contemplated just six months ago. As Managers, you have two choices: use Out&About Marketing to work on your Social Media Strategy, or find yourself  outgunned in a complex and changing Internet environment”.

With the launch of Sliding on The Cheap social media strategy, they are off to a great start. Within days, they accumulated 345 Facebook fans and continue to grow fast thanks to an easy and engaging Facebook contest.

It’s the perfect business to engage on social media with their fans. People love discounts and freebies and they will help spread the love from Sliding on The Cheap. Fan them on Facebook or start following them on Twitter today. Although, we can’t disclose the specifics of their social media strategy, here are some tips that any business can utilize to become successful:

1. Create a solid word-of-mouth campaign. Word of Mouth is your best marketing vehicle. If you have happy customers, they will talk about your business to their friends and spread the word for you – for free. If you need help creating your Word of Mouth campaign, Out&About Marketing can help.
2. Explore the possibilities of social media. Find the networks that make the most sense for you. Not everyone needs to be on Twitter and not everyone needs to be on LinkedIn. With more than 300 million active users on Facebook you can’t ignore it but you still need a plan on why and how you are going to engage. Have you heard of Foursquare? It may be the next Twitter.
3. Understand that once you commit to being on social media, you need to keep your content fresh and engage with your followers. There’s nothing worse than seeing a blog that hasn’t been updated for a year or going to a Facebook page that’s been non-existent for months.
4. Think of fresh and engaging content. Make sure you provide value and not just sell your business.
5. Listen to what your customers are telling you and address their requests in your business. Use social networks as a research tool to make your business better.
6. Adjust your strategy as you learn more about the social media environment. You will make mistakes. Apologize quickly and publicly when you make a mistake and move on.
7. Hire someone with experience that can help you get your social media off the ground. This new marketing medium is changing too fast and you need someone who’s staying on top of it, understands how it all works and can recommend the best approach for your business. You are probably not going to hire someone full time to learn and maintain your social media effort, but you can outsource some of it and commit to doing some of in in-house by spreading the responsibilities to people within your company. Social media can be very powerful if used well and any company can benefit from it. Social media does take knowledge and time. The knowledge required is not just about social media, but also about online marketing in general and how customers behave online. If you get stuck, Out&About Marketing is here to help you!

Share some excellent social media stories here or tell us what you need help with. Do you know someone who wants to explore the endless possibilities that word-of-mouth and social media present? Send them this post today. (Full disclosure: In case it’s not clear until now, Sliding on The Cheap is my client).