Twitter « FUEL LINES Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media

The Single Most Important Twitter Tool for Ad Agency New Business

October 7, 2011

TweetAdder is one of the most important tools you can use to build a targeted following on Twitter.

There are hundreds of 3^rd party tools for Twitter, but one stands out above the rest as the most productive for using Twitter for new business.

You don’t want followers just to have followers. Inbound lead generation will only happen if the bulk of your followers are your agency’s best prospects.

TweetAdder is a software program that charges a one-time fee to download and use this tool to build a Twitter database of people to follow.

The program allows you to search by profile data, such as searching for a companies CMOs. Anyone with that title in their Twitter profile you can add to your database of people to follow.

Another important feature of TweetAdder allows you to follow everyone that follows a particular Twitter account. For example, you can follow everyone that follows the AdAge’s Twitter account and also follow everyone that AdAge follows.

It would be best to find and follow the Twitter accounts that have an appeal primarily to your target audience such as a Twitter account for an association or tradeshow. You will get more people to follow that are your true targets.

Here’s an example: The Littlefield agency in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has Casino marketers as a primary target audience. They wouldn’t want to follow everyone that follows the Isle of Capris Casinos, the better choice would be to follow everyone that follows the American Gaming Association’s Twitter account and all those that the American Gaming follows.

Another great benefit for using TweetAdder is you can follow all who follow your competition’s Twitter account and everyone your competitor follows.

TweetAdder also has filters to help eliminate Twitter accounts that are least likely to be true prospects, such as those which have no profile photo. No profile photo is an indication that a Twitter account isn’t very active.

TweetAdder also allows you to automatically Follow, Unfollow and Followback Twitter accounts. Doing this manually requires a great amount of time. TweetAdder simplifies these processes.

Once it is set-up, TweetAdder is easy to maintain. All you need to do is open the program each day and let it run in the background on the computer. To add additional prospectives to your database, when it runs low, is easily done.

This program is very simple to use, an intern or a college student could be trained to use it. This task could also be added to the responsibilities of your agency’s receptionist and would require mere minutes of time each day.

Click on the following link to review TweetAdder with a Free Trial Demo

Additional Twitter tools that I recommend for your review:

7 Comments | Twitter | Tagged: Ad Agencies, ad agency new business, Michael Gass, new business, Social Media, TweetAdder, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

An Important Question is Raised as Social Media Loses Trey Pennington to Suicide

September 6, 2011

The Sunday of Labor Day weekend was a very sad day for the social media community. We lost one of our All-Stars and that raises the question; ” Just how real are online relationships created through social media?”

According to news sources, on Sunday morning, around 11 am, Labor Day weekend, Greenville, S.C. Police received a call that there was a man in possession of a gun at the Second Presbyterian Church on River Street. Police found social media personality, Trey Pennington, in the church’s parking lot. Police repeatedly asked him to put the gun down but Trey turned the gun on himself and fired a single shot, committing suicide. He was 46 years of age.

Trey Pennington was a Greenville, South Carolina businessman, author, international speaker and a thought leader in social media. He created such an appeal because of his genuine desire to help people.

One of the people he most admired was Zig Ziglar. Last year he shared the stage with Zig and a highlight of his life was conducting an interview with his mentor. Trey’s favorite Ziglar quote was also a summation of his attitude when it came to helping others:

“You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.”

Ironically, I never met Trey in person but he was indeed my friend.

My first connection with Trey came when he asked to conduct an interview for his Blog Talk Radio program, Social Media Professor.

Later, he was a huge help when I was planning my first business trip to London. He co-founded Like Minds, a social media conference that launched in England. He traveled there on many occasions and was kind enough to share his knowledge of the area and prepared a detailed list of resources and contacts for my trip. He was always glad to be of help, never expecting anything in return.

Trey called me several times. I knew what his personal struggles were. We talked about his ongoing battle with depression and how he was trying to cope. I tried my best to instill hope. Before our conversation ended, he wanted to know if there was anything he could do for me. Typical of Trey.

I received my last correspondence from Trey at 8:46 on Friday evening. He let me know in his final note that he was still struggling, but was hopeful for the future. Traveling on Sunday, I didn’t learn of his suicide until later that evening. I was stunned to say the least. I immediately checked out Trey’s Twitter account and found this:

Trey posted that message at 10:21 a.m. on Sunday, just minutes before ending his life. Trey had a Twitter following of over 111,000 people, but no one could help him at his greatest time of need.

When I checked Trey’s Facebook page, I saw where he had posted more than 70 photos before taking his own life. Photos of happier times spent with his family and friends. He shared some of his most treasured memories with us.

Trey’s suicide raises many questions. Among them, just how real are the relationships created through social media?

I know personally that Trey drew strength from his social media community. Many responded with support and expressions of genuine affection for him. Willing to do whatever they could to be of help. Just as did his family, friends and church community.

At Trey’s memorial service, his pastor shared that Trey’s problems weren’t from lack of support or that people were not aware that he was having difficulties. Trey reached out and many of us were aware and there for him, but in the end, powerless to help him.

We probably won’t ever know what was going through Trey’s mind on that Sunday morning for him to commit the ultimate act of letting go of life. But I think that we know that the many relationships that he established through social media are real. He had friends throughout the world that he most likely wouldn’t have made had it not been for social media. We are all grieving for a friend that we lost, someone special, that always showed that he cared.

My heart goes out to Trey’s family. He leaves behind a wife, six wonderful kids, two grandchildren, mother and brother. I know they will draw strength from the rich memories Trey leaves with them.

My hope, in the coming days and weeks is that his family will be able to draw real strength and support from his online family of friends.

Here are some additional special tributes to Trey:

7 Comments | Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: Greenville S.C., Social Media, suicide, Trey Pennington, Zig Ziglar | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

101 Insights from the 2011 Mirren New Business Conference

April 13, 2011

The reader’s digest version of the top insights from the largest agency new business conference of the year.

The 2011 Mirren New Business Conference was recently held in NYC. With over 400 advertising agencies represented, this is the premiere event of the year for agency new business. Over 400 agencies were represented for this 3 day event that included 30 sessions.

Wish you could have been there? I thought the next best thing for those who missed it would be sharing some of insights gleaned from the attendees who were Twittering live from the conference using the Twitter hashtag #MIRREN, sharing some of the best-of-the best information.

Enjoy these top 101 nuggets from the conference attendees:

@hugeinc @edwardboches: kids coming out of school today are fearless and don’t label themselves according to job descriptions
@edwardboches: the single most important thing you can do is create the best internship program in the country
@jbraftus: The only proprietary tool agencies have is their people
@dglittlefield Biggest trend in agency selection is category experience. Agencies need to narrow and go deep as opposed to wide and broad.
@HeatherWit Stop selling the agency and start fixing their problems.”
@LaurenOnDemand …great marketing is about being seductive…..about creating content and ideas people want to spend time with.
@kfiddner Congrats on recognition at #mirren for your “brilliant” blog: www.theonethingblog.com Relevant, focused to your target clients.
Brent Hodgins featured theonethingblog.com as best practice example in today’s agency website discussion.@dglittlefield: @kfiddner
@therealadbadger: Clients don’t have time for blogs. But they do have time for focused blogs
@mediatwo 7 basic principles for agency wesite: 1) objectives 2) targeting 3) USP 4) value 5) supported 6) tone/personality 7) user experience
@awbrown 2011 statistic: Agencies lose 95% of pitches when they lack category experience
@greenergirl put your category expertise up front to get the clients u want via your site
@awbrown: There are nearly 70,000 marketing services companies in the US. Over supplied market, receding demand.
@pinkbird_bi Diversify ur pipeline across prospecting, organic growth & pitching; increase ‘qualified’ at bats to improve winrate
@HeatherWit Client anxiety is evolving. Clients are asking “what is my social strategy? Can any of my agency partners do social well?”
@HannahPoferl: “In a meeting, whoever talks most thinks it went really well.” ~ Brent Hodgins
@MikeDuda Start every pitch w/ shot of tequilla, vow to one another the team will win & failure’s not an option. Period.
@pinkbird_biz Laura Maness Is your agency’s positioning client-centric? [hint: the agency monologue is dead]
@tomzazueta: “Fastest path to revenue is influencing your client’s revenue.” – Brent Hodgins
@cullenob Agency biz dev dir’s encouraged to take control of their own job desc’s to be clear on what they’re accountable for.
If you wait to start the brainstorm at the brainstorm, cancel the brainstorm (via @maureendevine)
@omutak Will centralized global capabilities be a profitable revenue source 4 mid-size agencies?
@DMVAND Which of the archetypes Is your presentation style? Motivator, Counselor, Drill Sargent or Professor? Use them all?
@maureendevine: 20% of what you say provides 80% of your persuasion in a pitch. Key is to make sure your client can find your 20%
@cullenob If you want till the brainstorm for ideas, you’re in big, big trouble. @levyinnovation
@maureendevine 20% of what you say provides 80% of your persuasion in a pitch. Key is to make sure your client can find your 20%
@therealadbadger Great ideas are only logical in hindsight.
@pinkbird_biz Search consultants parting advice: believe (u are who u think u are), velocity (be faster), authenticity (be true to ur brand).
@pinkbird_biz communications should drive action: clicking, liking, passing, tweeting, shazaming, sampling fast becoming rule
@jsidess when you focus on what your consumers focus on, you can be much more effective on getting their attention
@therealadbadgerBrainstorming sessions destroy the ability to spontaneously create big ideas. You can’t schedule ideation.
@mediatwo“account planning is the future of the industry” – Brent
@mnburgess Social ROI is still murky. But none of us have the courage to give up on it!
@pinkbird_biz If a client sets clear rules for the pitch, you should probably follow them.
@therealadbadger Pay attention to the CEO. It’s their job on the line. What have they promised to their shareholders?
@therealadbadger: Clients always reveal the secret to winning a pitch if you’re listening closely
@Linkergy:CMO’s say they need Reader’s Digest version of what makes the agency unique.It’s a culling exercise.WOW us in 30 mins
@Linkergy cmo panel says analytics are absolutely table stakes today, no longer just a nice-to-have.
@Melissa_Robison Average lifespan of a #CMO is 2 years: Nick Utton, E*Trade at#mirren
@pinkbird_biz Clients are adding to roster vs. wholesale change. Implication?…get in the door, solve a problem, build a relationship over time.
@omutak: The worst agency cliche: Take your brand to the next level.
@tomzazueta: “Fastest path to revenue is influencing your client’s revenue.” – Brent Hodgins
@Melissa_Robison E*Trade CMO: we are ruled by Wall St. and graded every three months. Need agency big ideas. If they fail, fail cheap and fast.
@ashandy73 “Agencies try to be liked at the cost of being respected.”
@cullenob: “Results” doesn’t mean results in clients’ eyes. Use their lexicon, not yours, if you want to show category expertise.
@therealadbadger: Process is process. There’s nothing proprietary about it.
@cagrana: What’s the most powerful word in New Business?: NO. Have self respect and stick to your limits.
@cagrana Best presentation tools? PPT is out, conversations and Prezi are in.#Mirren.
@edwardboches: if you have to tell a client you’re digital, social, or mobile that’s a crock. If you really are they’ll see it.
@HeidiReys Search consult panel: “U have more control over price than U think. Ex: recent winning agency comp was 40% higher than others”
@tonysignore Don’t try to be all things to all people. Focus. Look at where you do your best work and add to that.
@awbrown: Hiring people with computer science backgrounds is a major trends for agencies.
@mediatwo: #mirren If a client doesn’t fall in love with you, you will NEVER win the business.
@cherwenka Funny brand example: Designer condoms called Proper Attire. If you aren’t wearing one you aren’t getting in
@hugeinc: @edwardboches we try to learn from ourselves too much. We shd get as far away from ad industry as possible to learn.
@HeidiReys Reviews are elimination process all way thru and usually won in pitch vs. client preferences at beginning. Chemisty is huge.
@pinkbird_biz Don’t underestimate the importance of structuring your physical space to support innovation & collaboration
@markschnurman If you can’t present well (or any team member), you are not going to win. I did not pay him to say this:-) Brian Goodal
@dherscott Its not over until its over – never give up throughout the pitch process – indeed!
@rinsights Online surveys are the most cost effective quant research technique. Make sure they are well designed by experienced researchers
@rinsights: Focus groups are great, but many bad decisions can come from them. Use them for “exploring,” not “deciding.”
How did you change your agency to make it more innovative? @tonysignore “make hard choices including personnel changes”
@markschnurman Re: Search consultant- Doing work that gets notices puts you on search consultant radar-Brian Goodall
@cherwenka “74% of the time when a client fired it’s agency, they said they were happy with the work.” -Signore, CEO Taylor
@Malbonnington Love this, from @edwardboches @ #mirren: “Mullen’s new one word mission statement: #velocity“
@jbraftus The only proprietary tool agencies have is their people
@LindsayBL quoting 4A’s study: 617 pitches last year, only 23% of which run by search consultants (down from 38% in prior years)
@rinsights Webcam focus groups trim deadlines, save on time and travel cost, allows geographic diversity
@mediatwo All agencies only have ONE proprietary tool: your people. Showcase them in RFI
@mediatwo Worst mistake in submitting RFI is length. Be innovative and show examples but keep short
@MARKLIMBACH Interesting 4. Clients and agencies agree…67% rely on gut & instinct, 33% on data.
@mjgoldberg Act your way into a new way of thinking instead of thinking your way into a new way of acting.
@cynthiahprice Enthusiasm around what is possible is still one of the best business development tools. Andrew D. From Mother at #mirren
@jbraftus Agencies and clients are more alike than different
@dglittlefield 59% of agencies and clients think an agency’s role is becoming more important in the world of branding and marketing.
@DavidRCampbell: 52% of agency employees like there jobs vs 31% of clients
@pinkbird_biz: @4As Tom Finneran encourages agencies to adopt P&G’s BAL Model: ‘one throat to choke’ for agencies & client
@pinkbird_biz The world is changing. New business today is more global than it’s ever been before.
@cullenob Thought leadership, and standing for something as an agency, formula for new biz, not gimmicks. @scottfrog
@dglittlefield Agencies: Be bold. Be distinctive. Today’s bold doesn’t mean outrageous.
@HeatherWit Today, clients are looking for thought leadership. Gone are the days of the “dog and pony” show
@edwardboches: RT @HeatherWit: Agency cliches: We have: “the best people, award-winning creative, proprietary process…”
@thinairchi: 4As reports average digital agency hourly billing rate is half that of a midsize law firm.
@Cathy_Carl When a client sends you an RFI, you should send them an RFI. An adult, peer-to-peer discussion is a must
@joelparent If we don’t all play by honor system Agencies will lose battle against Brands that seek 2 abuse us. #mirren Hold the line! This. Is. Sparta!
@cherwenka AAAA study across 98 spec work pitches: 67% of winning pitch work was implemented.
@dglittlefield AAAA’s has benchmark for agencies when dealing with… “Your rates are too high!” did u know average hourly rate is less than $150?
@galaxie65 I believe that Tom Finnernan from 4A’s speaks for all agencies and we must increase our rates for our business
@HeatherWit “Vet it quickly and vet it early” (regarding knowing a client’s budget sooner than later) – Stephen Larkin
@mediatwo 4As Tom Finneran says marketing survey shows brands use avg of 13 agencies and 5 are digital
@dglittlefield Creativity is often a feeble weapon… the client problem is strategic, not creative.
@HeatherWit More than having the will to win, you must have the will to *prepare* to win (via @HeatherWit @tomzazueta
@galaxie65 Interesting that agency fees on a standardized basis decreased more than 50% in past 20 years. This needs to change.
@HeatherWit The most substantial thing you can do to regain your power – is to walk away. Take control of how you operate your business.”
@HeatherWit “In all negotiations, you usually have more power than you think you have. They key is to tap into that source of power.” (Gleason)
@maureendevine stop thinking like an agency and start acting like a consultancy = seen as more credible and get make more moolah
@cherwenka: Ouch. “your real competitor is your client, not other agencies.” That seems to be the theme here.
@jonjonbailey Be the orange in a basket of apples.
@MARKLIMBACH The avg agency is doing 20% of its work for free, with the othe 80% being under-paid by client
@HeatherWit “Vet it quickly and vet it early” (regarding knowing a client’s budget sooner than later) – Stephen Larkin,
@DavidRCampbell: Quote of the conference #mirren “Pee in the Shower, it’s fun and 69% of agency people do it”

Which was your favorite? Share it in the comment section. If you were an attendee, please share your best take-aways from this event.

The #MIRREN hashtag generated 429 tweets in a 24 hour period, 648,305 impressions, reaching an audience of 269,600 followers on Twitter. Click on the following link to review the report: HashTracking

Another article that may be of interest: The Future of Ad Agency Promotion at Events Through Social Media

3 Comments | Agency Leadership, New Business Trends, Special Events, Twitter | Tagged: David Littlefield, Edward Boches, hashtags, Michael Gass, Mirren, Mirren New Business Conference, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

5 Ways to Recycle Older Content for Ad Agency New Business

March 31, 2011

Continue to generate a great return on your time investment, writing for your agency’s blog, by recycling older content.

As you write your posts, learn to write “ever-green” to give the content a long shelf life. I recently wrote a post, 50 of the Best Insights from Ad Age’s First Ever Small Agency Conference, the first ever small agency conference sponsored by Ad Age. Even though this was a one-day conference, I purposefully wrote the post in a way that would allow the content to be used for a much longer period of time.

My recycled posts continue to generate lots of blog traffic and fresh comments from readers who have just discovered them for the first time. The date of the material shouldn’t matter. What should matter is relevancy. Is the content still of value to your audience?

Here are 5 simple ways to repurpose older content:

Twitter: This isn’t like your email inbox. People are on and off Twitter rather quickly. Often they are scanning for helpful resources to their advertising/marketing challenges. That the majority of your followers would see a post that you published at 11 am on a Thursday is remote. It’s about reach and frequency. SocialOomph is a great program to assist with repurposing content through your Twitter account and allows you to control your publishing schedule knowing what post is being published when.
Email Newsletters: Posts from your archive will find new life by way of your newsletter. You can group older posts around a particular category or theme. Highlight the “best of” your online content. Here are a couple of examples: Fuel Lines, Convince and Convert’s Vault
Facebook and LinkedIn: Another way to repurpose content is through other social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Just not with the same frequency of posting as you would with Twitter.
Through other posts: Do the work on behalf of your readers and at the end of your new posts include links to additional content that is relevant. Check out my ‘Additional articles of interest’ at the end of this article. This makes it easier for your readers to find relevant, older content on your blog.
eBooklets and Whitepapers: After you have been writing awhile, you can easily pull together content to create eBooklets or whitepapers to share with your audience. I have also pulled older content together for SlideShare presentations. You can even recycle your blogs content into a book. An example is Bob Hoffman’s The Ad Contrarian.

I would also suggest revisiting older posts that may not have generated very much traffic. With the proper edits and revisions you can breath new life into them as well.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

5 Comments | Agency Blogs, Best Practices, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: advertising agencies, business development, content, Michael Gass, recycle, The Ad Contrarian | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Twitter Study Provides Data for Ad Agency New Business

February 22, 2011

Understanding how your prospects are using Twitter and what personal data they are willing to share can boost its use for ad agency new business.

Sysomos is the leading provider of social media monitoring and analytics technology. They have analyzed more than a billion tweets generated by over 20 million Twitter users in 2010. This included bio, website address and location information (both textual and lat / long) disclosed in their profile pages to see how many details Twitter users were divulging.

Here’s some of the highlights of Twitter usage in 2010:

The number of Twitter users offering personal information within their bios has more than doubled to 63.3%, compared with 31% in 2009.
82% of Twitter users now provide a name, compared with only 33% in 2009.
73% provide location information compared with 44% in 2009.
45% of users submit a website address versus 22% a year ago.
From January, 2010 until mid-August, 2010, new users accounted for nearly 44% of the total Twitter population.
Only 0.05% have more than 10,000 friends they follow, and only 2.05% have more than 1,000. The vast majority of users – 95.8% – have less than 500 people they follow.
Only 0.06% of Twitter users have more than 20,000 followers, and only 2.12% have more than 1,000 followers. Meanwhile, 95.9% have less than 500 followers.
More than three-quarters of Twitters users – 80.6% – have made fewer than 500 tweets, 2.7% have made more than 5,000 tweets.
A small hard-core group (2.2%) have accounted for 58.3% of all tweets, while 22.5% have accounted for about 90% of all activity.

Click on the following link to read Sysomos report: Twitter Statistics for 2010: An in-depth report at Twitter´s Growth 2010, compared with 2009

Some Twitter tools to help you measure and improve:

TweeterGrader: a free tool that allows you to check the power of your twitter profile compared to millions of other users that have been graded.
Tweetstats: a free tool that will graph your Tweets and show how many retweets.
Bit.ly is a universal url shortener that not only provides a handy service in shortening urls but also allows you to access analytics to see how many people are clicking on your link.

Additional articles for using Twitter for ad agency new business:

2 Comments | Twitter | Tagged: advertising agencies, Michael Gass, new business, Social Media, Sysomos, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

My Twitter Formula for Ad Agency New Business

February 16, 2011

Photo Credit xotoko

How to engage Twitter with purpose and intention for agency new business.

Twitter is the leading traffic generator to my blog Fuel Lines. Out of 30,000 monthly page views, Twitter easily delivers more than half of my blog’s traffic.

Twitter, like SEO, also delivers highly targeted traffic to my blog. My tweets are specific to a clearly defined audience, ad agencies.

When I first started using Twitter I stumbled upon a ‘twitter engagement formula‘ shared by an educational consultant, Angela Maiers. Her simple formula helped me to understand the potential of using Twitter for new business. Angela calls it her 70-20-10 Formula for using Twitter. Over time I’ve refined her formula and created my own method that I share often in agency workshops, conferences and meetings.

So here it is, My Formula for using Twitter specifically used specifically to generate blog traffic and create new business leads:

Share Helpful Resources

Sharing resources that are of value to my niche Twitter followers makes up 75% of my tweets.

I share content from my blog. Over 600 posts are circulated through Twitter. All specifically written for ad agencies, providing new business tips, trends and specific tactics. A repository of information to help make agency’s new business program easier. Here are a few examples of recent Tweets that link back to my blog’s content:

10 Ways to Create An Ad Agency Blog That is Reader-Centrichttp://dld.bz/Ck25
The Top 14 List of Advertising Agency Networks for New Businesshttp://dld.bz/Ck28
5 Ways Social Media Can Make Ad Agency New Business Easier Not Harder http://dld.bz/Ck2u

Few of those on Twitter are creating and sharing original content. You want to be the one whose content your followers are retweeting, sharing with their followers, exposing your content through their personal networks which creates awareness and a strong appeal.

People want to work with other people that they know, trust and like. Sharing resources through Twitter can keep top-of-mind awareness for your services.

I also share rich, helpful content that I find through my reading. I usually spend the mornings perusing through my RSS feeds in Google Reader. Content from a wide variety of online resources into one location. I save a considerable amount of my time, not having to constantly searching for content.

Meers Advertising turns itself around by plugging into digital | Kansas City Business Journal http://bit.ly/eeKczE

Downloadable Report: B2B Blogging Trends in 2011 featuring @johnsonnhalter @jaybaer http://bit.ly/emjPB0

When I find something particularly good that I think will be of benefit to my audience, I can immediately share it through bit.ly, or schedule a time to share it through tools like Hootsuite or Co-tweet. This way I can scatter the helpful articles that I’m finding, over time instead of Tweeting them all within my morning reading hour.

I share tweets from others. I use some personal Twitter lists that I have created to help me keep up with Tweets from friends and other groups that I find helpful. When read something good, I’ll retweet it.

RT @TimWilliamsICG Ad Agencies: How and when do you make the decision to outsource? Here’s a friendly guide. http://ht.ly/3Q0kp

RT @marthabush B2C companies see a year-over-year market share growth when using analytics in lead gen efforts http://bit.ly/h2V2tt #b2c

As you can see, the biggest percentage of what I do with my Twitter account is sharing information with my audience.

Here’s a convenient list of the tools that make it easier for me to share content with your followers:

Networking

20% of my Tweets are directly responding to others.

Twitter is a real-time networking site. Answering questions, sharing a point-of-view, re-connecting, collaboration, participating in conversation, etc. From these important tweets, lifelong professional and personal relationships have been forged.

Here are a few examples from just this morning:

TravisJLeone @michaelgass Do you have any specific case studies on social media leading to ad agency new business?#presentation4boss

EricWerner @michaelgass – Are there any events you’re planning to speak at in the Southeast this year? (Missed the one earlier this month)

@agencyside thanks for the RT. Look forward to seeing all of you at Bolo 2011 http://bolo2011.com
TonyCeresoli @michaelgass Hi Michael! Things are moving along pretty well, thanks for asking. How are things with you?

Note: Twitter isn’t the only place that I’m networking. I also use LinkedIn and Facebook. Over time I see a lot of previous Twitter conversation move to Facebook. Especially as relationships grow.

Status Updates

5% or less of my Twittering is sharing “as-it-happens” updates.

I share status updates from workshops, conferences, seminars and other live events.

I’ve even reported on events that I wasn’t present at but was a listening participant, such as the Ad Age Small Agency Conference, I gathered information from attendees and was able to create this report: 50 of the Best Insights from Ad Age’s First Ever Small Agency Conference

This was the response from AdAge:

@adage And it’s not even over! RT @michaelgass 50 of the Best Insights from Ad Age’s First Small Agency Conf #smallagency http://bit.ly/bTZqhL

This formula is intended to provide you with an example, a place to get started. No doubt, the more you participate, you’ll create your own formula for using Twitter.

“Engage Twitter with purpose and intention, and new business success will follow!”

Additional Twitter articles that may be of interest:

1 Comment | Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: Ad Agencies, AdAge, Bitly, business development, CoTweet, Michael Gass, new business, SocialOomph, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

ADWEEK.COM: All 61 Ads from Super Bowl 2011 in 2 Minutes

February 10, 2011

ADWEEK and the Mullen agency create excellent awareness for themselves through the Super Bowl and their use of social media.

ADWEEK’s video generated over 60,000 views in 1.5 days. There were over 47,000 Tweets that used #brandbowl hashtag and over 18,000 people who visited their site during game night. Not bad exposure for Mullen.

In case you missed them, this Adweek.com video provides the ‘Readers Digest’ version of the 2011 Superbowl Ads, a quick look through all 61 adds in 2 minutes.

For another recap of the Super Bowl Ads, check out Brand Bowl 2011, created by Mullen, a Boston-based advertising and social media agency, and Radian6, a leader in social media measurement and engagement.

Brand Bowl was built to gauge public reaction to the brands advertising during the Super Bowl. By monitoring Twitter, we can measure people’s opinions and rank the brands accordingly. The brand with the top “Brand Bowl score” on Sunday night will be the winner of Brand Bowl 2011, and is allowed to date the head cheerleader.

Which ad was voted #1? Check out the overall winning ad and the runner’s up by clicking on this link: Brand Bowl 2011

You might also care to read this article about the Brand Bowl 2011, “Brand Bowl makes a run at social media metrics for advertising“, some additional exposure for Mullen and their Brand Bowl partners.

Leave a Comment » | Agency Leadership, Promotion, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: Adweek.com, Brand Bowl 2011, Michael Gass, Mullen, Radian6, Super Bowl 2011 | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Find Prospects Using TweetAdder for Ad Agency New Business

January 19, 2011

A tool that will allow you to find and build Twitter followers that are new business prospects for your agency is TweetAdder.

TwitterAdder is a simple to use software program. This tool does a great job in allowing you to build a data base of highly targeted prospects for you to follow on Twitter.

Execute searches for people/companies to follow on Twitter:

By geographic location. Target companies, key executives within your particular market.
By profile data (i.e. CEO, CMO, “marketing director”, etc.). Basically any data that is a users profile that would identify them as a prospect.
Followers of a user. For example, if your clients were B to B companies, you could follow all 7,831 followers of B to B Magazine’s Twitter account, @btobmagazine.
Followed by a user. Using the same example of B to B Magazine, you could also follow everyone that @btobmagazine follows.
Twitter List Search imports another users twitter list. Mashable has a helpful Twitter List Directory. Search this directory for your listings of your primary prospects and easily load them into TweetAdder. You can also uploads lists from other Twitter accounts, like @michaelgass and my list ad-agencies.

TweetAdder compiles a data base from your saved searches. In less than an hour you could identify and build a sizeable data base of prospects.

Here are some additional helpful features of TweetAdder:

You can manage more than one twitter profile. Set up accounts for key executives in the agency and also use this tool for your clients. So little time is required TweetAdder could be assigned as a tasks for your agency’s receptionist or make it a responsibility of one of your agency’s interns.
Auto follow Twitter users who follow your Twitter account.
Automate your account to unfollow those that do not follow you back or have unfollowed you to keep your follow/unfollow ratio close.
You can set each Twitter account to follow-up to 200 people per day from the data base that you have compiled. 20% to 30% of those you follow will follow you back, increasing your prospective client pool.

The cost is minimal, especial if also used for client accounts. To use TweetAdder with 1 Twitter account, the one-time cost for the software is $55. You can upgrade to use with 5 or 10 Twitter accounts at any time. Pay $188 and use TweetAdder with an unlimited number of Twitter accounts.

What I personally like best about TweetAdder:

Find prospects quickly
Automate the process of building your Twitter following
Small one-time costs for the software that can be used for your agency’s client accounts
You can assign the use of this tool to junior level staff members
Build up a sizeable targeted Twitter following, 600 to 1000 followers per month

Click here for further info or to try out the trial version.

5 Comments | Twitter | Tagged: ad agency new business, Michael Gass, Social Media, TweetAdder, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

5 Tips for Handling Social Media Negativity for Ad Agency New Business

October 1, 2010

You can’t let a few negative people dictate how you use social media for ad agency new business.

Unless you are Rush Limbaugh, most of us don’t enjoy having others say negative things about us. We have a desire to be liked. But please know that if you participate in social media you are guaranteed to get some negative comments. The larger your followers, the more negative comments you can expect.

Some of this negativity can be very rude and nasty. But you can’t let a few negative people dissuade you for using social media for agency new business.

At times early adopters of social media or those that are using it strictly for personal pleasure can act as though they have been sworn-in as a special social media detective ready and willing to point out when people are using it incorrectly from their point-of-view. But if you can’t build relationships, generate leads and build your business through social media, you are wasting valuable time.

Here are of my 5 tips for handling negativity:

1. Consider the source.

When I receive a negative comment to a blog post or through Twitter, the very first thing I do is a little background check of that person. I can soon ascertain if they are normally negative and love to play the devils advocate with others or if they are a respected social media participant and/or a member of my online community. I consider the source before I choose to even respond.

For instance, if someone pops off with a negative response to me through Twitter, they are not in the advertising industry and have less than a 100 Twitter followers, why would I even respond to their negative comment and then expose it to my 25,000 + followers? I would probably choose to “unfollow” them and even “block” them from following my Twitter account.

2. Know upfront, everyone isn’t going to like you.

I like it when people like me and no matter the source, it often bothers me if someone doesn’t. But, that is life. You are going to have an appeal to a certain audience and to others you will have little or no appeal. To have success in social media, you cannot be all things to all people. If you try to appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one.

3. Be thick-skinned but not hard-headed.

When you get through some of the negativity as a participant in social media, you can develop a thick skin and not let negative comments affect you, or not take it so personal if someone unfollows you in Twitter. But when you are generating lots of negative comments or unfollows it pays to take note and reevaluate your social media tactics. Do pay attention to those that you are trying to reach. They will help you to hone your appeal.

4. Learn from your mistakes then let it go.

I once had an intern that I was paying to do research. The person came up with a great list of companies who were using social media and how they were participating. I wrote an article and published the list on my blog.

A week later, while I was on vacation, I received a very angry voice mail from a highly respected, early adopter of social media who wanted to know why I had stolen his list. I was mortified, did some quick research and discovered my list was exactly the same as his, even the fonts. What I felt was beyond embarrassment, but I made a quick call to apologize and immediately took down the article. I now always double-check my sources.

Take your lumps when you’ve made a mistake, learn from it and then let it go.

5. Follow the Golden Rule.

Be nice. Simply follow the Golden Rule and “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” There’s a huge difference between helpful criticism and being a jerk.

I speak from experience when I tell you that the positives far outweigh the negatives for your participation in social media. It provides a multiplicity of benefits. The greatest being your personal and professional enrichment. That it can generate agency new business is like icing on the cake.

3 Comments | Best Practices, Fuel for Thought, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: Blogs I Recommend, negativity, Social Media, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

7 Tips for Using Twitter for Ad Agency New Business

September 1, 2010

Used in the right way, Twitter can be one of the best social media tools to be used to generate traffic and leads for your agency’s new business.

For the past 3 years Twitter has been the leading traffic generator to my Fuel Lines blog. It definitely needs to be part of your agency’s overall social media marketing strategy.

The following are seven of my personal tips to help make Twitter more effective for your agency’s new business:

Don’t be afraid to use Twitter differently from the way it was originally intended to be used. Twitter is more of a broadcast tool that most would admit and current research validates. Treat it as a broadcast tool through reach and frequency of your content marketing efforts and generating the best return on your time investment by repurposing your content through tools such as Social Oomph.
Build a targeted Twitter following. Research Twitter lists such as Mashable’s Twitter List Directory, third-party programs such as TweetAdder.
In addition your own blog’s content, be sure to supplement your Twitter posts with resources from others that are of help to your target audience.
Pay-it-forward. As others are so kind to publicize your content, also help to promote theirs.
In addition to Twitter being a broadcasting tool, it must be utilized as a networking tool for you to have success. Content helps build awareness but it is up to you to turn awareness into relationships. The efficiency of these kinds of online networks should be all that is need to motivate you to participate. People want to work with other people that they know, like and trust.
Use third-party Twitter tools like CoTweet and HootSuite to minimize your time and maximize the effectiveness of your Twittering.
What you learn to do for your agency can be used for your clients. There are a multiplicity of benefits from your involvement.

To provide you with further help in using Twitter for new business here are 20 of the most popular post:

Follow this list of agencies and see first hand how they are using Twitter: Twitter List: 500+ Advertising Agencies on Twitter

5 Comments | Agency Blogs, Fuel for Thought, New Business Tips, New Business Tools, New Business Trends, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: content marketing, lead generation, Mashable, Michael Gass, Social Media, Social Oomph, TweetAdder, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

50 of the Best Insights from Ad Age’s First Ever Small Agency Conference

July 15, 2010

Bourbon Street Painting by Debra Hurd

Direct from New Orleans, some fresh ideas and insights for small-to midsize advertising agencies that are worthy of your review.

Ad Age recently conducted its first-ever Small Agency Conference in New Orleans. They brought together a great group of group of speakers that shared their expertise delivering rich nuggets of information from the importance of having a unique agency culture; how to attract the best talent in the marketplace; using creativity to boost the bottom line; to the nuts and bolts of new business and getting the win.

Attendees have been Twittering from the conference using the Twitter hashtag #smallagency, sharing some of the best-of-the best information. Wish you could have been there? I thought the next best thing for those who missed it would be sharing some of those Tweets for you. Some excellent insights.

Enjoy these top 50 nuggets from the conference attendees:

@sharondnapier The Brownstein Group has “Family” dinners with their key clients.awesome!
@tjeffrey: What do clients want to be educated about most ? 1 – social media. 2 – analytics/measurement
@adage: Everyone at @methodtweet takes turns answering phones, working front desk. “Keeps ego out of the org.” – Eric Ryan.
@jeremyporter: Find a way to get people to audition for your job. Hire off of homework not the interview.
bwaggoner: #smallagency It’s not about an agency and a client. It’s about a bunch of smart people in a room with good ideas. – Eric Ryan of Method
@rupalparekh Brand Jockey? Sure. If you work at Method (@methodtweet) you get to choose your own title
@AdLawGuy: Rocketfish owns a coffee company – who knew?
@jeremyporter: Very impressed by Rockfish. Lots of cool projects. They even make their own coffee to know what it’s like to be a CPG company
tjeffrey: Eric Ryan – “Without a social strategy, you can’t succeed with social media.”
AdLawGuy: Eric Ryan of Method: every brand in social media should have a social message
@BartCleveland: #smallagency speaker Eric Ryan: values ooze authenticity.
@addieking Victors & Spoils’ @ClaudiaBattenexplains why crowdsourcing is not a fad, it’s a paradigm shift.
@addieking: Training is everyone’s job – Eric Ryan
BartCleveland: #smallagency speaker Eric Ryan: get new employee candidates to audition for the job i.e. what will you do to sustain Method’s culture?
AndyGould: Eric Ryan of Method: our HR director is our real marketing director
jacirusso: No social mission? No social media.
@adage: Sharon Napier: to know who you want to be as an agency you have to know who you are. Purpose+values.
@AdLawGuy: Rockfish licenses the technology it creates for clients; smart that agency retains ownership
@scoutbranding: Getting inspired to launch our own products by @kennytomlin
@adage: Miami Ad School survey asked ideal size shop grads want to work for. Top answer? 50-100 people
@AndyGould Miami Ad School’s Pippa Seichrist: recent grads looking for culture foremost when deciding who to work for #smallagency
amklaassen: Now THAT’S a dessert buffet! #smallagency http://twitpic.com/25k0fv
@tjeffrey Account people need to hone their digital knowledge in order to propose solutions for clients. #smallagency NOW!!!!
@AndyGould Miami Ad School’s Pippa Seichrist: recent grads looking for culture foremost when deciding who to work for #smallagency
@jacirusso: Employees really looking for culture first and foremost.
@addieking: Ways to keep good talent: interesting projects, good culture and feeling appreciated
addieking: Aol and @AdAge know how to host a tasty lunch session =)
@AMPEDart: U don’t define an agency by the number of employees, but by the size of their ideas.
@addieking: Client want silver bullets. They don’t exist.
@bobbbyg: ”What unites us more than our size is the fact that we are independent.” Phil Johnson, CEO, PJA Advertising
sharondnapier: Small agency conference or independant angency. I vote Independant
bwaggoner: Too much tactical work makes you into a machine.
@liz_money: There is a need to understand trad marketing tactics as well as understanding social media.
amklaassen: Digital experts/agencies serve as guides. Probably like how agencies felt in 50s, Mad Men era. Tom Martin.
addieking: A #smallagency is there to guide clients thru this new digital age -@tommartin
@AndyGould: panelist @TomMartin: hardest person in advertising to find is the digital-savvy AE
jacirusso: @tommartin wants “people who speak advertising like a native yet still fluent in digital”
@jenmod: #smallagency don’t only look at a prospect’s tool kit, look at the mechanic when hiring
@sharondnapier success is shallow of it doesn’t have emotional meaning
AmyP: Account folks need to have deep marketing knowledge as well as digital competency in order to provide the most client value.
addieking: The lines between publishing & advertising are blurring
AdLawGuy: Do young people understand how 2 market thru social media? Or do the just understand how to use the platform
@jacirusso: Can’t even apply at these agencies if you don’t have digital skills
@AndyGould: Seraj Bharwani: 3 categories of dialog-worthy content – branded entertainment, how-to and “video snacks”
kenwheaton: Small agencies in non-major cities “have to own where you live.”
tjeffrey: Sharon Napiers “There’s only one creative bar for all agencies.”
kenwheaton: ”Don’t you hate when you hear it’s great work for a small agency? It’s great work. Period.” Sharon Napier.
@TomMartin: “We were their ‘and’ agency” – interesting way to look at being the 2nd agency on a roster.
scoutbranding: Sharon Napier, CEO of Partners + Napier speaking. Her agency’s purpose: To liberate the promise of brands everywhere. Nice.
tjeffrey: Vote Daisy – an example of how Method, a challenger brand, is taking on Clorox: http://bit.ly/8YY8go

A great resource for small-to midsize ad agencies is Ad Age’s SMALL AGENCY DIARY.

This is a side note, a way to participate in conferences when you aren’t present by using Twitter:

I wasn’t able to attend the Small Agency Conference but I was able to share in it through live Twitter streams from the attendees. You could easily get a gist of some of the best-of-the-best parts of the conference speakers by what the Twittering attendees felt were important. There would be lots of the same quotes and points repeated.

I was able to glean from the Tweets some of the best insights from the attendees themselves. It felt as though I was there in a sense. I knew that the conference room went from being extremely cold to hot and very uncomfortable. Participants loved the New Orleans style cuisine and were absolutely blown away by the deserts.

The camera guy offered advice, through Twitter, to the speakers. Speakers shared their impressions. Lots of behind-the-scenes info that you wouldn’t have gotten just through a live video stream.

I was even able to follow along during the Awards Banquet that evening and have heard from friends who attended the conference on their travel home.

How to enhance Twitter by Blogging:

I was able to post the 50 Best Insights out to my 40,000 + followers on Twitter before the conference was even over through a blog post on my Fuel Lines site. That allows the content provided through the Twitter hash tags to have a much longer shelf life. This info will continually be shared well beyond the conference. This is a reason to use a blog as your central social media platform to complement tools such as Twitter. I will continue to gain SEO, content for my eNewsletter, repurposed Tweets that will be re-published through my Twitter accounts periodically

I also help spread the word of the conference, create buzz and help generate traffic for the conference sponsors: AdAge and AOL Advertising.

@adage And it’s not even over! RT @michaelgass 50 of the Best Insights from Ad Age’s First Small Agency Conf #smallagency http://bit.ly/bTZqhL

19 Comments | Agency Leadership, Best Practices, Digital, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: Ad Age, AOL Advertising, new business, New Orleans, small ad agencies, small agency conference | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

10 Twitter Networking Tips for Ad Agency New Business

May 24, 2010

Get more out of Twitter and generate inbound leads for your agency’s new business by creating a personal network of prospective clients.

I didn’t quite know what to do with Twitter in the beginning until I read an article from Angela Maiers, educator, author, blogger who now leads Maier Educational Services. Angela developed a simple Twitter Engagement Formula that provides purpose and direction for her participation. She calls it the 70-20-10 Formula. My formula for using Twitter has evolved differently from hers but it provided a great example on how to get started.

What I’ve discovered with Twitter is that it is great tool for creating awareness and traffic for my blog but is equally effective and efficient as a networking tool. Just remember to retain your offline personal networking skills while online.

Here are my ten tips on creating personal networks with Twitter:

Make a commitment to spend enough time on Twitter to understand how it works. Think of it as just another communications channel. When you’ve paid your dues in the beginning you will be able to better utilize a number of Twitter 3rd party tools to make your time management extremely efficient. Edward Boches, CCO, Mullen, What Twitter Can Do For You – Adweek.
One of the most important lessons I can share is that you remember to Help Others. Zig Ziglar, one of the most successful sales trainers in the world says “if you help enough people get what they want in life, you will get what you want in life”.
Grow targeted Twitter followers. Mashable’s searchable Twitter List Directory is a great place to start. The more traffic that you can generate, from among your target audience, the more inbound new business leads that will follow.
Teach/Don’t Sell. But the best way to close a sale is by building a relationship, Todd Knutson, CEO, The List.
Sustained focused effort. Twitter is more of a broadcast channel than many realize. The majority of users never post anything … but they are definitely reading and clicking. Twitter Usage in America: 2010 – Complete Report.
Gather “real-time” market intelligence and feedback. Social media recognizance could provide a significant advantage to your agency’s new business initiatives. Twitter, along with blogs, blog comments, and other social networks, is abundant with conversations that can give your agency a boost over your competition. Read how JetBlue tested the social media credibility of ad agencies vying for its account and how participating agencies got a leg-up on their competitors.
Take the time to create conversations and get to know those who rise up to help make your content viral by retweeting it through their personal networks. Remember to be genuine. Everybody can tell when someone is schmoozing them.
Give Attention to Your Twitter Profile. Allow your agency to remain in the background. Make your profile relevant to the interests/benefits of your target audience. Here are a few good examples: @bradjhanna, @johnsonnhalter, @parkhowell.
If you are out of sight, you will be out of mind. There are ways to easily maintain a consistent presence on Twitter within the time constraints of your busy day. Tweedeck, CoTweet, Bit.ly or Social Oomph are some good 3rd party Twitter programs that will be of help.
Point to resources other than your own. Become a repository of great info for your audience that extends beyond your original content. Link to other helpful resources. May will repay you in kind.

Additional Twitter articles, specifically for ad agencies that can help you take advantage of Twitter’s growth for new business:

5 Comments | Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: Ad Agencies, adweek, bit.ly, Edward Boches, inbound leads, Michael Gass, new business, park howell, Social Oomph, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency CEOs: Social Media Philosophy and Tips for New Business

May 19, 2010

These are my personal observations, opinions, philosophy and tips from my experience working with social media honed and refined through my personal use and my work with over 50 ad agencies, PR firms, interactive and design shops over the past three years.

My work with social media, from the beginning, has been from a new business perspective to grow inbound lead generation and personal networks.

I’ve tried to develop the kind of practical new businesses processes, incorporating social media, that make sense within the environments of small to mid-sized agencies to overcome a commonality of problems such as:

No primary target audience
No point of differentiation
No strong appeal
No time left to create a “consistent” new business pipeline

My philosophy and personal opinions for using social media for ad agency new business:

Social media “teaches” agencies to promote themselves the way they should have been doing new business all along; to lead with benefits instead of agency capabilities and credentials.
Agencies need a differentiated and appealing position to a particular target audience (and no, great creative, proprietary processes and big ideas are not differentiators).
By enlarging the agency’s online footprint so it can be found by their best prospective clients that match up with the core strengths of the agency. 85% of CMOs found their vendors, not the other way around according to a CMO Study that was done in 2008.
Through social media, you build relationships, trust and a position of expertise. People always prefer to work with people that they know, trust and like. Social media is like working on steroids when it comes to enhancing your personal networking capabilities.
Even though social media is very time intensive in the beginning as you get up to speed, it becomes an extremely efficient use of time. Prospects have an opportunity to check under the hood, kick the tires, examine the upholstery within their own timetable. When the need arises and they are ready to do business, they will even initiate the call and that first conversation is going to be much further down the road than if you had made a cold call. You skip the dating process and move on to the engagement, they are usually ready to do business.
The central platform for developing new business through social media is an agency blog. As important as it was for your agency to have a website it is becoming essential that your agency have a blog. Your agency’s website is becoming more like an online static brochure. A blog provides better SEO, fresh content rich content, is more personable, easier to update, provides a reason for your prospective clients to visit often. Content marketing can become the fuel for your agency’s new business program.

The following 10 tips are my suggestions for creating an ad agency new blog with the objective of building your social media capabilities, credibility as well as generating new business:

1. I recommend that you do not incorporate your blog into your agency’s website

Most agency blogs look to corporate and less personal. If it is tied into your agency’s website and branding, it is immediately constricted and has no room to breathe and grow. It’s okay for your agency’s Website to show its diversity of clients but a blog has to have a specific target audience.

The Website is your online brochure, the place where capabilities, credentials and the work reside. The blog will compel you to focus your agency more narrowly without the risk. You wont be throwing the baby out with the bath water. You will still generate a diversity of clients the way you’ve done it in the past, through personal referrals and recommendations. But the blog allows you to go fishing for the fish that is the best fit for your agency.

You can fish for a particular fish, by using an appealing bait and you fish away from the boat so that you don’t scare the fish away!

2. The agency’s blog should be reflective of its principals

You have to remember that social media is about people, not an entity. Don’t hide behind the vail of the agency, be the face for the agency. Again, people want to work with people they know, trust and like.

Your agency needs a face and for most small to mid-sized agencies, that face needs to be the agency principal(s).

From my experience working with prospective clients of, small to mid-sized agencies, they always are interested in the chemistry with and oversight of the agency owners. You are the visionary of the agency. The only way you are going to “get” social media is to participate. If it isn’t a priority for you it wont be for your agency.

Also, keep in mind that the agency principals are the least likely to leave the agency. If you lose a staff member who you’ve allowed to be the face of the agency through social media, you lose your equity and a significant portion of your audience.

3. Keep the design simple

The more people you involve in this process the more chance you will have a bottle neck that slows and most probably stops the process. I had one agency that took 5 months just to create the blog header. Another instance we couldn’t get a password from an IT guy because he didn’t want to email it and wasn’t available to talk by phone for 3 days!

Keep the people involved to a minimum. Remember that content is king. It is the fuel for the engine and don’t let anything inhibit generating the content.

I would suggest to start out utilizing WordPress, TypePad, Blogger blog platforms. My favorite is WordPress. You can create a blog in minutes rather than days, weeks or months. It will be a constantly evolving process and its important that you keep the process moving.

You can easily add pages, navigation, graphics without help from your IT department or much assistance from the creative staff. You should be able to have your blog up and running in a matter of minutes not hours, days, weeks or months. Keep the design clean, simple and easy to navigate. Stay focused on delivering the beneficial content.

The site needs to be more personal and less corporate. Let it reflect your personality. Keep from including your agencies logo. The agency should reside in the background. A great example of this philosophy, Edward Boches’s blog, creativity_unbound.

A side note: be sure that you own your domain. Instead of www.fuelingnewbusiness.wordpress.com I own the domain www.fuelingnewbusiness.com. That way I can change platforms without losing my traffic.

4. Make your target audience crystal clear

I write specifically to small to mid-size ad agency principals. She-conomy’s audience is male advertisers who should be marketing to women, Blue Collar Branding has a focus on marketers of manufacturers who want to reach blue collar workers. For your blog to be successful, keep you target audience in mind. You don’t want traffic for traffics sake, you want targeted traffic. This not only will help your SEO but also when you repurpose content through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

5. Before you begin to write learn to listen

Please remember this: reading fuels your writing. A great time saver for your reading is to use an RSS Reader. My suggestion would be to sign up for Google Reader. The key is to find sources for great content and have that content flow to you instead of you constantly having to search for it. Google Reader allows you to easily organize all of your online reading. It is very efficient.

Learn about social media etiquette, understand the importance of transparency and motive when using this emerging media but remember this one rule, there are no rules when it comes to social media. It is still evolving and we are pioneers within the space when it comes to marketing and advertising within this channel.

Chris Brogan was a huge help to me when I first started blogging. Here are a few of his articles that will be of help to you too: 10 Best Resource Articles for Ad Agency Blogs.

Watch your blogs analytics, it will help to fine tune the appeal for your writing. Always look to your readers, what they care about and respond to.

I’m 53 and if I can do this so can you. It’s my experience that is much easier taking a baby boomer through this process who has advertising and marketing experience rather than someone much younger who understands the new communications tools better. You can get up to speed overall much quicker.

Just don’t forget to bring your marketing mind and personal networking skills into this space. It’s just another communication channel.

6. Write Concisely

People read online differently than they do print. They usually don’t read word-for-word, they scan.

Nielsen Norman Group ’s research found that 79 percent of their test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.

This makes it a tough transition for copywriters who tend to be clever and fluff up the copy. Make your posts scannable by:

Being brief, give your readers the Readers Digest version, the executive summary. Do the work on their behalf
Dividing up copy into shorter paragraphs
Using bullet points or numbered lists
Using compelling subheads, quotations, bold, italics, etc, so readers can scan for the information they need

Follow Hemingway’s example:

“I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit,” Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. “I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

These are a couple of additional articles to help with your online writing:

7. Jump start traffic to your blog to accelerate lead generation

“Build it and they will come,” is not the answer to generate traffic to your agency’s blog. You must employ proactive tactics to create awareness and interest among prospective clients. The more traffic that you can generate, from among your target audience, the more inbound new business leads that will follow.

The strategic use of Twitter and eNewsletters can significantly bump up targeted traffic to your blog in a short period of time. I have consistently repurposed my blog’s content through Twitter and my eNewsletter.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking, if I’ve written it everyone must have read it.

Twitter has been the leading traffic generator to my blog for over 2 years. I have a schedule for repurposing my blog 500 + posts into two different Twitter accounts that regenerate this content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to 35,000 + followers.

My eNewsletter is sent out every other week to a data base of over 10,000 email addresses. The copy for the eNewsletter comes from my blog posts. It takes literally 10 to 15 minutes to create and send. That allows it to be maintainable even when I’m at my busiest.

Through these two tactics alone I can get 100% return on my time investment from writing my posts.

Here are some quick tips to help generate traffic to your blog:

Publish posts frequently. I would encourage you to post at least 3 times and preferably 5 times per week.
Write evergreen for your posts to have a long shelf life and a good return for your time investment.
Syndicate your new posts to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Add your blog link to your email signature.
Use a program like Social Oomph to repurpose your blogs older content through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Add a Share Button at the bottom of your posts to allow them to be easily promoted by others to through their personal networks.
Provide subscription options for your blog such as through email or an RSS Feed such a Feedburner.
Identify key words you want to dominate in Google search and consistently use them in your posts titles.
One thing to not do that will impact traffic. Don’t sell! The moment you start to sell on your blog is when you will most likely LOSE your audience.
Don’t forget SEO. Identify the key words you want to dominate and consistently use them in your posts titles to accelerate your rankings in search engines such as Google.

8. Create resources for blog post ideas

Because I know who my target audience is, I have identified the categories that I’m going to write to, coming up with blog posts ideas is not difficult. From my experience, the narrower your focus the easier it is to find things to write about.

As I mentioned earlier, reading fuels writing. When I’m reading in the mornings, using Google Reader and scanning through hundreds of posts and articles I have filtered directly to me, I find a few that catch my eye. So that I don’t become distracted while reading, I use a tool called Press This, that will place the interesting posts/article title, URL link and synopsis into a draft posts in WordPress. When I write, I can go to my draft posts and work from there. The last time I checked I had over 240 draft posts that will eventually be published.

I also keep a Word document on my laptop’s desktop with a running list of ideas. Checking through the list I have over 100 possible topics, subjects, examples, tools, tips, current trends, resources, etc.

9. Be focused and consistent

It is as simple as planning the work and following the plan. I start out each day knowing who is my target audience. I write consistently to the stated purpose of my blog which is, “fueling ad agency new business through social media.” I make irrelevant material relevant to my readers. I do the work on their behalf. I’m consistent with my timing and religiously follow a regular posting schedule of 5 posts per week.

I follow a daily ritual to keep me on track and consistent. I start every day with my strategic reading. My homepage in FireFox is my Google Reader. I open it before I will dare to open my first email because if I open the first email, my day is done.

I also enjoy getting a leg-up for the week by having 2 to 3 posts finished by Sunday afternoon of most weekends. These are preset to publish on different days of the week and I’ll write the other two posts before the week is up. My readers can be assured of finding fresh content.

That doesn’t mean that you are providing all original content for each post that you write. I usually recommend that one post per week be original content, other blog post are highlighting other information, resources, research that will be of help to your target audience.

10. To keep up you must have the right mindset

We will experience more change in our industry in the next five years than we have in the previous 50.

“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 they’ve finally relented, it isn’t going to go away. 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.

Before you brush off participation, understand the multiplicity of benefits for your efforts through writing an agency blog:

I’ve helped to create over 50 agency blogs and have found it to be a great agency branding tool. A lot of agencies are in a perpetual state of branding their agency. A blog helps them to answer the tough questions and provides a way to be more narrowly focused without throwing the baby out with the bath water.
A blog is worth doing if only for this one big benefit, professional enrichment. It provides a system for you to stay ahead of the learning curve in communications technologies and in front of where your clients and prospective clients. A position of leadership. Thought leadership.
The interaction with your prospects is priceless. If you really want to know what your prospective clients obstacles are and become a thought leader, then write a blog.
The old saying is true, “you don’t know what you know until you write it down.” Writing a blog will help you become a much better communicator.
For every prospective client you reach you will have 10 brand advocates who will promote you and your agency through their own personal networks.
Learn to create a strong appeal for your agency. A blog will help you to stop using agency speak and speak in a language that resonance with your target audience. It will teach you how to generate an appealing message.

These are some examples of relatively new ad agency blogs that are following this philosophy:

I have to agree with business guru, Tom Peters, “nothing in the last decade of my professional life has positively impacted me more than blogging.” I can confidently say that it can do the same for you and your agency.

This post is dedicated to Jim Breitinger, Salt Lake City Utah, for his encouragement and insight. Very much appreciated Jim.

17 Comments | Agency Blogs, Agency Branding, Agency Leadership, Best Practices, New Business Trends, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: advertising agencies, blogging, blogs, business development, CEO, Jim Breitinger, Michael Gass, Social Media, Tom Peters | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Twitter Usage In America: 2010 Study and Ad Agency New Business

May 10, 2010

Twitter is one of the social media tools that can be used as tool for your agency’s social media marketing strategy to generate online traffic and a pipeline for new business leads. Over the past 3 years the leading traffic generator to my blog has been Twitter.

Twitter Usage In America: 2010 is a new report derived from the Edison Research/Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Series. This report is derived from three years of tracking data on Twitter usage in the United States. It is filled with rich information that can help guide the use of Twitter for your agency and its clients.

Twitter is more of a broadcast channel than many realize. The majority of users never post anything … but they are definitely reading and clicking.

Here are some highlights from this comprehensive study and its untapped potential for marketing, advertising and your agency’s new business:

Awareness of Twitter has exploded over the past twelve months. The percentage of Americans who are familiar with Twitter has surged from 5% in 2008 to 87% in 2010. Twitter is a natural “companion medium” to other media channels – in particular, as an accompaniment to live TV.
Despite equal awareness, Twitter trails Facebook significantly in usage: 7% of Americans (17 million persons) actively use Twitter, while 41% maintain a profile page on Facebook.
Nearly two-thirds of active Twitter users access social networking sites using a mobile phone.
Twitter Users Split Between Habitual “Tweeters” and Those Who Access Occasionally. The majority of Twitter users are “lurkers,” passively following and reading the updates of others without contributing updates of their own but they are listening, reading and clicking.
Twitter users are far more likely to follow Brands/ Companies than social networkers in general. Twitter users frequently exchange information about products and services.
51% of active Twitter users follow companies, brands or products on social networks.
Most (70%) regular Twitter users do post status updates to some social networking service (likely Facebook. Twitter appears to be functioning as more of a broadcast medium compared to Facebook and many other social networking sites and services.
Marketing and Business use cases for Twitter far exceed similar usage for social networking Web sites in general.

The full 49-page study, full of interesting graphs and data is available for download: Twitter Usage in America: 2010 – Complete Report

Here are 20+ additional Twitter articles, specifically for ad agencies that can help you take advantage of Twitter’s growth for new business:

2 Comments | Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: advertising agencies, business development, Edison Research/Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Series, Michael Gass, Social Media, Twitter, Twitter Usage in America 2010 | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

JetBlue tests the social media credibility of ad agencies vying for its account

May 7, 2010

Social media recognizance could provide a significant advantage to your agency’s new business initiatives. Twitter, along with blogs, blog comments, and other social networks, is abundant with conversations that can give your agency a boost over your competition.

JetBlue Airways tested the social media credibility of ad agencies vying for the airline’s marketing account by tweeting. Ad Age’s Kunur Patel recently reported, in his article JetBlue Marketer to Agencies: Find Me on Twitter, wrote,

“One basic way agencies can demonstrate digital chops to a potential client? Find him or her on Twitter.

That’s the lesson to be learned from JetBlue’s senior VP-marketing and commercial, Marty St. George, who earlier today decided to test agencies currently vying for the airline’s marketing account with this tweet: “We’re pitching our advertising AOR. Curious on digital savvy … first test is how many of the agencies will find me on Twitter.”

As of the timing of Patel’s article only two agencies, Mullen and New York-based Ludvik & Partners, were following Marty St. George (@martysg). Boston based Mullen was named as JetBlue’s new agency following a five-month review process.

I’m sure Mullen did its homework and was gathering as much intel as possible. Knowing that JetBlue’s marketing strategy leans heavily on digital channels and social media the past few years. That the company has 1.6 million followers on Twitter and that Mr. St. George also had his own Twitter account and was posting about the agency review process.

Mullen has been “walking the walk” creating a strong track record within the digital space and the social media arena, that has been producing new business results such as their recent win of the Zappos account.

Unsurprisingly, the Ad Age article raised quite a few comments. Many comments from those within the ad industry were negative toward Marty St. George’s tactics:

If you ask me, JetBlue isn’t setting the bar very high with this little exercise. There are much better way to find a digital savvy agency.
I’m not sure if this is absurd, egotistical, misguided or all of the above.
Unfortunately this is an example of how not to start an agency review.
By analogy, I wouldn’t find my future wife by asking her to find me on twitter.
Hey, St. George, get over yourself. do you want top talent or not? stop with the rank “talent search” moves.
Face it: its a hack move pure and simple (with the emphasis on SIMPLE).

My opinion, from a new business perspective, while many agencies whine about these type of tactics the smart agencies will seize the opportunities. What’s your opinion?

Additional articles that may be of interest:

21 Comments | Agency Leadership, Digital, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: business development, JetBlue, Kunur Patel, recognizance Michael Gass, Social Media, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

10 Twitter Mistakes Made By Ad Agencies for New Business

March 16, 2010

Twitter is one of the social media tools that can be used as tool for your agency’s social media marketing strategy to generate online traffic and a pipeline for new business leads.

Many ad agencies that are finally jumping into social media have no strategy. A good number seem to be working from a social media checklist that they now have an agency Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to show prospective clients they are participating in this new space. But what is still lacking is a genuine credibility and comprehension of how to use social media for themselves to actually generate new business.

Here are 10 mistakes agencies should avoid if they want to generate new business through Twitter:

Signing up then not participate. A tell-tale sign that Twitter is nothing more than a check-off on your social media check-list. When you rarely post to Twitter it will show.
Self Promotional Tweets. Agencies that sound more like cars salesmen, constantly using promotional Tweets to tout their agency’s new hires, new business acquisitions, awards, etc.
Hiding behind the agency veil. Using your agency’s name as the Twitter account without revealing who is doing the Tweeting. Even Ford Motor Company gets this right, having allowing @ScottMonty to be their social media spokesperson under his own Twitter name rather than through the company’s name. It’s awkward to try to engage with a company. Social media is about people. A lot of the same principals of face-to-face networking applies to social media networks such as Twitter.
Automated Responses. These drive not only me but will drive your prospects crazy. They are impersonal, and usually contain no value other than to clog up your Direct Message box forcing you to scan through dozens and dozens to reach those who have sent you a personal one.
Little if any value to your Tweets. If you want to build a following that will provide new business leads, you must Tweet content that is of value within those 140 characters. My article, “A Simple Twitter Formula for Ad Agency New Business,” provides a simple formula for using Twitter.
Fail to generate Twitter traffic ‘to anything”. I have recommended that to agencies that they have a blog that becomes the “gateway” to the agency and generate traffic to the blog through tools such as Twitter. The blog serves as the central platform for your social media strategy.
Failing to use 3rd party Twitter tools. These can tools help you identify your best target audience and build your Twitter account’s data base of followers within the ratios mandated by Twitter. Your agency’s blog content can stay fresh with new postings but older posts have a very long shelf life from not only SEO but also through repurposing posts to Twitter using some third-party Twitter Tools such as SocialOomph. You can create a Twitter schedule as you would any other type of media schedule. It’s naive to think if you have written a post that everyone has read it.
Using the reply function when you should use a direct message. Not every reply needs to be share with your entire Twitter audience. Almost all replies should probably be sent by Direct Message to the person.
Failing to engage in the conversation. It amazes me that most agency principals have reservations about engaging with their prospective client audience. Social media and tools such as Twitter, provide the most efficient means of creating personal network with your agencies best prospects. I have over 30,000 followers on Twitter alone and it is easy to stay engaged and be part of the conversations without it requiring an undue amount of time. I probably spend no more than 15 minutes a day responding through Twitter.
Allowing the early adopters of Twitter to mandate how your agency should use it. Face it, Twitter has superseded anything envisioned by its creators or early adopters “way back in 2006.” It’s amazing that it was the celebrities, not ad agencies, that first figured out the value and potential of Twitter.

Here are 20+ additional Twitter articles, specifically for ad agencies that can help you take advantage of Twitter’s growth for your new business:

18 Comments | Agency Leadership, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: Blogs I Recommend, Google Reader, Michael Gass, Social Media, Social Oomph, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

A Great Ad Agency New Business Tool to Optimize Twitter

March 10, 2010

75 million people visited Twitter in January alone, over 23 million were from the US. According to Twitter, over 50 million tweets are sent daily.

Twitter is being talked about everywhere. People are drawn to it because of the buzz of its popularity but the majority of people don’t understand its potential. That includes most ad agencies.

My primary objective for using Twitter has been to increase traffic to my blog. Twitter is now the leading traffic generator for FUEL LINES.

There are hundreds of tools that have been developed to enhance Twitter’s usefulness for marketing. The tool that is most helpful to me and the one I use most often for ad agency new business is called Social Oomph.

These are some of the Social Oomph features that I like and use:

Manage multiple accounts from one dashboard (your agency’s as well as clients Twitter accounts)
Manage an unlimited number of blogs
Upload your agency’s blog posts and URLs from an Excel spread sheet, in bulk to Social Oomph
Pre-set the date/time range for each post in minutes
Automatically shorten post URLs through Bit.ly and track clicks
Automate – follow those who follow you in Twitter
Automate – unfollow those who don’t follow you in Twitter
Purge and filter your Twitter account’s DM box
Small monthly fee that is month-to-month, cancelable at any time (more than pays for itself for the time that it saves)
Junior level people/interns can be easily trained to use this tool on behalf of the agency and clients
You can also schedule your agency blog posts to Facebook, just keep the repurpose level to only a few per day

For Twitter to have real value from a new business perspective for ad agencies, you must have a clear objective and follow a simple formula for use.

To reach my objective to my blog’s traffic and exposing it to a new but targeted audience, I’ve followed Angela Maiers 70-20-10 Twitter Engagement Formula.

70 to 80% of my “Twittertime” is spent sharing helpful information for ad agency new business with my audience. I do this in two ways:

First, I share lots of information from my online reading that I think will be of help to my audience. I’m able to use some tools such as TwitThis that I’ve placed in my browser bar. When I come across a good article that I think will be of help all I have to do is click on TwitThis and automatically post the article title and tiny URL into my Twitter account.

Secondly, I also share the content from my FUEL LINES blog. I now have over 500 of my own blog post regarding ad agency new business. I’m able to use Social Oomph to expose these posts to new audiences.

I can easily schedule the date, time and recurrence of each post. With the volume of post that I now have I can publish a different post on Twitter every hour, seven days a week twenty-four hours a day without repetition. Older posts, that are still useful, have new life. The best posts are often re-tweeted and exposed to new networks of people.

Your Agency’s Blog Posts: Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if you’ve written it, everybody has read it.

Twitter is more than a fad. It is a valuable marketing tool. Twitter tools such as Social Oomph make it priceless for generating traffic and new business leads.

Here are 20+ additional Twitter articles, specifically for ad agencies that can help you take advantage of Twitter’s growth for new business:

20 Comments | New Business Tools, New Business Trends, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: Angela Maiers, Social Oomph, Tweetlater, Twitter, Twitter Formula, Twitter tools | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency Draw 63,000+ Twitter Users for BrandBowl 2010

February 9, 2010

A great idea for building agency awareness …

The Mullen advertising agency, and Radian6, a leader in social media measurement, created BrandBowl2010, a Twitter/Super Bowl experience that combined tweeting, ad reviews and a host of metrics to let viewers generate and view real time ratings of the TV commercials that ran on the big game.

“According to the 63,000+ Twitter users whose comments were captured in BrandBowl2010, Doritos was the most effective brand to advertise on the Super Bowl telecast on CBS this year. Budweiser Select55 was the least effective brand.

The results were determined from a total of 98,656 Tweets collected at BrandBowl2010. The site provided an overall ranking of the brands advertising on the game based on a composite score that takes into consideration both volume of tweets and sentiment (positive or negative).” Brandbowl 2010

A great idea for ad agency new business …

Mullen offered the last place finisher in BrandBowl2010 — Budweiser Select55 — free creative services to help them make a better Super Bowl commercial next year and they are serious with their offer.

Additional articles regarding ad agency promotion:

3 Comments | Agency Leadership, Best Practices, Promotion, Twitter | Tagged: ad agency, AdBowl, advertising agencies, Brandbowl 2010, Mullen, Promotion, Radian6, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Twitter Integrates with LinkedIn a Plus for Ad Agency New Business

November 11, 2009

Twitter is the leading traffic generator to Fuel Lines. It considerably beats SEO, email and bookmarking directing some 27,000 page views to my blog last month. Traffic is what will help build your agency’s inbound lead generation. So Twitter can be a powerful tool for ad agency new business.

Others are taking note of Twitters potential power for business. LinkedIn has recently announced the integration of its platform into Twitter so that you can cross post between the two services.

Allen Blue, Co-Founder of LinkedIn writes, “LinkedIn has always been about helping you to build your professional identity on the web. The many elements that make up your online professional brand range from your LinkedIn profile to the many professional conversations you’re a part of. Status has proved valuable to our users, from finding new assignments and jobs to kick-starting a global business enterprise.

Now you can amplify those messages by broadcasting them to your audience on Twitter.”

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone discuss the partnership and its value to you.