Social Media Time Management Tips for Professional Enrichment

July 27, 2009

Ad agency clients are looking for leadership. Provide it by eliminating distractions and creating a ritual.

For success in agency new business, you must lead. To get to and maintain a position of leadership within this industry you need a consistent and strategic program for professional enrichment. Keeping pace with the amount of new information, thinking, and rapidly changing communication technology is exhausting and time-consuming.

What is the key to staying on top of your game? Avoid distractions. 

It is super easy to become distracted online. You start out searching for particular content, such as resources to write for your agency’s blog  and some article catches your eye, before you know it that has led to dozens of other topics and links that have taken you away from your primary mission and a precious hour of your day.

One of the best ways I’ve learned to not be distracted is to have rich content automatically  fed to me rather than me manually searching for it.

One of the ways that I accomplish this is using a RSS Reader. I chose to use Google Reader. It was awkward at first but I knew that if I stuck with it, it would be a great time management tool.

It took me awhile to find and subscribe to the best web-based resources for my own personal enrichment but now I have hundreds of RSS feeds coming to me in a central location, in specific topical folders that allow me to quickly scan through topics. Here are some of the category folders in my reader:

  • Agency New Business Blogs
  • Social Media Blogs
  • Client Blogs
  • Competitor Blogs
  • News Feeds
  • Sports Feeds

Additional tools to keep you from distraction.

When I find an article that I want to keep, come back to later, use as a resource for a blog post or post to Twitter I can use some of the short-cut tools made available through the reader itself or special buttons that I’ve added to my browser bar. This allows me to save or share information within seconds and continue to stay focused on my reading. Here are a some of the tools that I use:

I also have some key newsletters that I receive through my inbox. Some of these are daily briefs and others are received either weekly or monthly. Here are a few of my choice newsletters:

A few other online sources that are directed to my Inbox allows me to stay organized and focused.

  • Blog post comments (I’m alerted to any new comments and can easily click on the link to respond)
  • Google Alerts (Some handy uses of Google Alerts include monitoring news stories, keeping current on a competitor or industry)
  • TweetBeeps (Keep track of conversations that mention you, your URL, your clients, anything, with hourly updates)

Consistency is also key when creating your own program for professional enrichment. How do you stay consistent? Through ritual.

Peter Bregman, CEO of Bregman Partners, recently wrote an article, “An 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day” where he provided this time management insight:

“Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru, knows all about tricks; he’s famous for handcuffing himself and then swimming a mile or more while towing large boats filled with people. But he’s more than just a showman. He invented several exercise machines including the ones with pulleys and weight selectors in health clubs throughout the world. And his show, The Jack LaLanne Show, was the longest running television fitness program, on the air for 34 years.

But none of that is what impresses me. He has one trick that I believe is his real secret power.

Ritual.

At the age of 94, he still spends the first two hours of his day exercising. Ninety minutes lifting weights and 30 minutes swimming or walking. Every morning. He needs to do so to achieve his goals: on his 95th birthday he plans to swim from the coast of California to Santa Catalina Island, a distance of 20 miles. Also, as he is fond of saying, “I cannot afford to die. It will ruin my image.”

Be sure that you develop your own daily program that is realistic. One that you can maintain when your agency is at its busiest. The program that I created takes about an hour to an hour and a half of my day. But its the things that I must do to get ahead and stay ahead.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

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9 Comments | Time Management | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Socializing Your Ad Agency’s New Business Development

July 7, 2009

Discovering how to generate inbound leads and create an agency new business program through social media.

This is a more personal post than I have written in awhile. I hope that some of the discoveries and insights that I have had through my pilgrimage into social media will be of help to you and your agency’s new business efforts.

If you don’t know me, I am a new business consultant primarily to small and midsize advertising agencies across the country.

My point of differentiation from other agency new business consultants is “fueling ad agency new business through social media.”

 Social media is the central to my recommended new business program for ad agencies. That doesn’t exclude traditional methods but I’ve found that social media provides the central hub for agency new business program that can consistently generate qualified, targeted inbound leads.

My epiphany for utilizing social media for ad agency new business came when I discovered this stat from a CMO study,

“80% of decision makers say they found the vendor, not the other way around.”

There was a definate paradigm shift taking place in the way new business was being acquired. Social media and a down economy accelerated the shift. Instead of pursuing prospects it was now more important to strategically increase an agency’s online footprint with an appealing, differentiating position to be found by a specific target audience.

“Having directed new business for most of my advertising career, when I started my own new business consultancy I was determined to use the tools that I recommend my clients use. In my first year of business social media was rapidly becoming mainstream. I had a passionate curiosity to learn how social media could be used for ad agency new business by using it to build my consultancy.”

I quickly discovered a major obstacle that would be a primary deterant for agencies. Participation in social media was very time intensive. It took a lot of late nights, early mornings and weekends to get up to speed and a lot of time and energy to stay ahead of the curve. But I also learned a to have a disciplined approach to social media that allowed me to become better at time management online.I discovered many tools and techniques that enhanced, simplified and even automated my efforts.

My next discovery was best practices for increasing an agency’s online footprint. The best central social media platform, at least for now, is a blog. As important as it was in the past to have an agency website it was now equally important, to have a blog. The agency website was being relegated to the position of an online brochure, the blog was to become the “gateway” to the agency.

The more I participated in social media I discovered another rich nugget … social media actually taught agencies to do new business the way they should have been doing it all along. Social media compels you to choose a target audience, you can no longer be everything to everybody and generate any significant traffic.

Here are some additional lessons gained through using social media for ad agency new business:

  • It’s hard for people to socialize with an entity such as an ad agency. The agency needs a face, people must be involved and it needs to begin with the agency’s principal(s). People have a natural tendency to want to work with people that they know, like and trust. Social media greatly accelerates and expands networking opportunities.
  • For the agencies that find themselves in a perpetual state of re-branding, social media simplifies the process. Social media has become the best agency brand/positioning tool I have ever used.
  • If agency principals are willing to do only two things they can provide their new business director with what they need to  build a consistent new business pipeline that can easily be maintained by junior level staff or even interns, even when the agency is covered up with work. All they need to do is basically read and write. The content they provide pays back their time and energy a dozen times over and has a long life, repurposed through multiple social media channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, email newsletters and SEO.
  • Social media compels agencies to lead prospective client conversations with benefits instead of agency capabilities.
  • Instead of agency speak, such as “our proprietary process,” they learn to speak with words that resonate with their target audience.
  • Agencies can affordably build awareness among their best target audience well beyond their geographical location.
  • Social media provides engagement and feedback from an agency’s best target audience to determine what is or isn’t appealing and greatly improve upon an agency’s appeal.
  • Agencies can continue to obtain new business through traditional methods. “You don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water.”  Social media provides additional opportunities.
  • It is a powerful presentation when an agency can demonstrate how they have used social media to promote their agency. They are practicing what they preach and using the tools they are recommending to their clients and prospective clients.

I’ve witnessed a recent change in agencies attitudes toward social media. Most have stopped debating the value of social media and are now willing to jump in. Here’s my advice to those agencies willing to participate:

  1. Choose a target audience and a point of differentiation for your agency. Think narrow and deep rather than broad and shallow.
  2. Find the online resources that provide enlightenment to you and will be a helpful resource to your audience. Use Google Reader to organize your online reading.
  3. Create an agency blog, center it around people, not your agency. Allow it to live apart from your agency’s branding. Keep in mind, relationships first.
  4. Set a goal to reach your first fifty post in a short window of time, such as 30 to 60 days. The first five post are the hardest. It will become progressively easier as you continue to write. Remember, you don’t know what you know until you write it down. Read and write your mind clear and you will accelerate your learning curve in social media.Fifty posts will also provide credibility to your blog (provided its content of value to your audience) and the content that can be repurposed through other channels.

There are many additional resources within my blog that will be of help. If you have questions, please feel free to email them to me.

Additional articles that may be of interest:


17 Comments | New Business Tips, New Business Tools, New Business Trends, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

How Do I Keep Up with Social Media?

May 17, 2009

The  first step … in order to keep up … is to have the right mindset.

“How do you keep up?” That is one of the most common questions I’m asked from agency CEOs and executives when I conduct “New Business Through Social Media” workshops around the country.

One of the main reasons agency principals haven’t been as inclined to participate in social media is that they are already over extended with little time for anything additional in their professional or personal lives. When they make time to participate and understand social, is when relent that it isn’t going to go away and will continue to impact our industry. What will make the social media pill easier to swallow is the understanding the multiplicity of benefits it provides.

Social media only becomes a priority when you understand the multiplicity of benefits generated from it to you and your agency.

Here are my top five benefits of  Social media from an ad agency perspective:

  1. A Professional Enrichment Tool. This one benefit alone makes its it worth the time investment and believe me it is time intensive. The past couple of years I felt as though I were working on another graduate degree. But I can tell you the time I’ve devoted to a better understanding of and participating in social media has enriched my professional life. Social media is a tool that keeps me ahead of the curve with the rapid changes in communications and how those changes impact our industry. It brings focus, direction and discipline to my continued education.
  2. New Business Tool. Having spent most of my career in advertising in new business development I can tell you that social media is the most efficient new business tool that I have ever used. It is like being in heaven to those who are charged with creating and maintaing an agency’s new business pipeline. Prospective clients call you, that initial conversation is much further down the road, your best prospects feel they already know you and when they make that call they are usually ready to do business. Social media teaches agencies the way they should have been doing new business all along. Creating a social media new business program is affordable, efficient and is easily maintained during the busiest times at the agency. 
  3. Branding Tool. Most agencies seem to be in a perpetual state of re-branding. It is one of the most difficult task they undertake and few agencies have done it successfully for themselves. They tend to be their own worst client. Social media is the best branding tool I’ve ever used. To be successful with social media, generate appeal, build a community of prospective clients and inbound lead generation forces agencies to answer some basic questions they haven’t answered in the past such as, Who is their best target audience? What is their most appealing point of differentiation?
  4. Feedback Tool. Input from an agency’s target audience is one of the missing ingredients in their branding. It is difficult to develop the right kind of positioning and messaging without knowing what is truly appealing to your audience. Social media provides instant feedback from your target audience as to what is appealing and what is not in regards to your agency’s brand appeal. 
  5. Networking Tool. Agencies depend upon personal networks for survival. Social media is networking on steroids. Social media provides extremely efficient networking opportunities. It isn’t always necessary to attend lots of events to network for new business. If you have an mobile device or laptop you can network anytime and anyplace with lots more people than ever before. It is becoming possible to maintain connectivity from anywhere. I’ve been been able to stay connected and maintain my networks whether I’m in my car (someone else, driving of course), on a boat, riding in a plane or a train.

Social media provides such an efficient use of time that will pay big dividends on investment that time that makes it easier, to not only make room for it, but give it the priority it deserves.

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19 Comments | Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

How I typically start my day using social media tools for new business

March 18, 2009

Without some established habits the internet can become a black hole where you  waste a ton of time and accomplish little. I have client responsibilities plus things that must be done for my own company so I try to have a strategic, disciplined approach for the start of my day that works well for me.

I’m often asked to describe my typical morning  using social media tools for new business. 

The first thing I do every morning is check for messages. I’ve set up online monitors to keep me aware of conversations, links, comments regarding my personal brand, client’s, competitors, industry info as well as new business opportunities for agencies through RFPs, agency reviews, etc.

I use tools like Google Alerts, TweetBeeps and currently have daily alerts using terms like the examples below that are automatically emailed to me.

  • “Michael Gass”
  • “www.michaelgass.com”
  • “www.fuelingnewbusiness.com”
  • “agency review”
  • “advertising RFP”
  • “environmental marketing”
  • “www.parkhowell”
  • “Park Howell”

I scan through the email alerts to see if there is important info for me or one of my readers, clients and others who are in my network.

The next thing that I typically do is check my Twitter account to see if there are any “Replies or Direct messages.” I then check for new followers and send them a personal direct message. I will conduct  a quick search using search.twitter.com and/or Tweetscan checking for conversations  and comments about @michaelgass. I then make appropriate responses. When you get in a habit of doing these things it takes only a few minutes.

I go next to my Google Reader account which contains RSS feed subscriptions for some 30 blogs, local, state and national news and of course sports. I use the list view to quickly scan through typically 125 to 160 daily articles.

I have several favorite blog authors that I read everything that they write and others I look for post titles that draw my interest. I’ll click on the ones of interest. If the article warrants I’ll “Share” the item and/or “Star the Item” in Google Reader. I may use the info for one of my blog posts or I may click on my “Twitthat!” button that I’ve setup in my browser bar. Twitthat is a shortcut to posting an article on Twitter that might be of interest to my audience. It automatically states the article title and compresses the URL. It takes literally seconds to post an article to Twitter. A great tool.

Another tool that I might use is “PressThis,” also in my browser bar. If I come across an article that gives me inspiration for a post or one that I want to identify in a post as a resource for my readers I can PressThis and it will automatically post a draft post in my WordPress blog that automatically will include the post title and link to the source.

I may spend 20 to 45 minutes scanning and reading posts that are organized for me in GoogleReader. But it is a more focused approach that saves lots of time.

After I’ve done these tasks which mostly involves reading I go to my WordPress blog account for FUEL LINES. I quickly check the analytics to see what my blog traffic has been, what posts have generated the most traffic, what words were used in search to find my blog, etc.

I try to publish one new blog post per business day but I generally write these on nights and weekends and preset the publishing date/time. I have roughly 90 blog post drafts so I don’t have much difficulty finding something to write about even though I now have over 282 blog posts published on FUEL LINES.

This reflects a typical morning that takes approximately an hour of my time but I find that it is an hour well spent and provides a great start for the day.

What are some tips that have been helpful to you that you’d like to share?

Additional articles that may be of interest:

 

8 Comments | New Business Tips, Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

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