Everyday, bloggers and other content creators use the device of “The Top (insert a number) Things You (insert topic, advice, or other).” This is an easy way to attract readers who don’t really want to dive deep into a subject but want a quick read.
As we near the end of the year, I’m sure the lists of the best this or that from this year will be flying soon. So, as you develop your lists, think about what that number is that you want to us to stand out. Top 100? Too much. Top 40? Too old-school radio. Less than ten? Now you’re talking! Here’s my list of the best numbers to use for lists, with absolutely no scientific evidence of anything.
Tis the season … for Mashable Awards voting! My colleagues and I at Engage121 are thrilled that our firm is a finalist for Digital Company of the Year. Other finalists include big guys like Dominos Pizza, Progressive Insurance, and The WWE, so it’s an honor for our 13 year old social media software firm to be recognized. Thanks to all of our friends and clients for their votes!
“As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
Several years ago, I had the privilege of meeting Gordon Jump, aka Arthur “Big Guy” Carlson of WKRP in Cincinnati. He was passing through town on a PR tour for Maytag (he was the Maytag Repairman in the commercial campaign at the time) and did a live studio interview at the radio station I was programming.
What a pro! Mr. Jump was a PR person’s AND a media outlet’s perfect interviewee: he promoted the Maytag event for which he was the guest, and also was open to reminiscing about his WKRP glory days. It was near Thanksgiving, so he gave us his best on-air recreation of his classic quote from the WKRP turkey massacre episode. He was thankful for having such a good run and for still acting and portraying fun characters.
Today’s post is by guest bloggerJack SerpaofEngage121discussing the constantly changing landscape in social media media and online engagement for financial services.
According to WSJ: “The [audit] manual also encourages its auditors to consider complains lodged not only with the [Consumer Financial Protection] Bureau, but with such political actors as state attorney Generals and “on-line consumer complaint boards such asripoffreportandcomplaints.com.”
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was created with regulatory authority that far exceeds current financial industry regulations. Banks have long endured regulatory audits for possible “unfair” or “deceptive” practices when conducting business with consumers. However, the CFPB has the newly expanded authority, granted by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Law, to look for “abusive” acts.
The first concern for banks is that the definition of “abusive” remains unclear. The second and larger concern for banks is the CFPB can source online rating and review sites for evidence of possible abusive acts. The article mentions two review sites as examples: RipOffReport.com and Complaints.com. Engage121 monitors these two among the top forty consumer rating and review sites.
Evidence of this expanded authority was first published (buried) in mid-October in an 802 page tome called “Supervision and Examination Manual – Version 1.0”.
Last Wednesday, the brawn of CFPB’s expanded authority came to light when the new head of the Bureau, Mr. Raj Date, addressed Congress. Mr. Date described how the CFPB is empowered to “focus on the consumer” when regulating the nation’s financial institutions.
Engage121 is a social media management application that monitors all the consumer review sites that impact financial institutions, plus twenty social platforms and blog publishing tools, all in one integrated interface. The Engage121 application allows our financial clients—ranging from large insurance and financial planning companies to regional and community banks—to engage consumers while maintaining compliance with regulatory institutions including FINRA and the SEC.
For more information or guidance on monitoring social media platforms and review sites for financial institutions, please contact Jack Serpa, executive vice president of Engage121, at 203-849-7246, jserpa@engage121.com, or @jackserpa.
The number of Social Media conferences continues to grow each quarter. What’s growing even faster is the number of conferences, summits, and conventions that are industry-specific that are now completely social media marketing focused. I am continuing to pull together as many as possible into one compiled social media conference list and have updated it well into 2012.
If you are organizing, speaking at, sponsoring, or attending a show that is not on this list, please comment here or email me at jmonson@engage121.com and I will add it!
FranCamp‘s participants have spent the past few days continuing the great conversations on Social Media Marketing for Franchises. Here are the slides from my presentation on Twitter Tactics including 10 Best Practices for Brands. Please comment with any questions!
Franchisors, franchisees, agencies, and suppliers all had them same initial feedback as soon asFranchise Social Media Camp– FranCamp – wrapped on Saturday:
When is the next FranCamp? And, where?!?
The FranCamp organizing team got together immediately to discuss, but we want to hear from the Franchising Community as to what areas of the country make the most sense for busy marketers and development pros. Please take a minute totell us your choice for FranCamp cities.
Click Image to Take Poll and See Results
The desire of so many attendees to continue this discussion may have been based on the tight focus of all speakers and presenters. The discussions were neither too introductory nor too technical. All presentations and roundtable discussions were geared to giving everyone usable social media tactics to put in place immediately.
This was a refreshing change from the IFA’s recent attempts at having social media panels and presentations at the annual convention, which were very elementary for many franchise marketers.
Last week at Social Media Breakfast Chicago, I was pleased to lead a lively discussion with several smart marketers and community managers on Google+. Everyone is in the planning stages and waiting to see exactly what Google has in store for brands hopefully still this year!
It feels like Google+ is moving forward ever so methodically. There is now an API available though it’s limited to public data at the moment. In fact, this week I connected my Google+ profile to my Engage121account.
The group relayed stories how their brands and clients are anxiously waiting for the business pages to be rolled out. Here is a list of things you can do now to prepare.
1. Get in and use it as a personal profile now to get the feel.
2. Get your colleagues and valued connections from other platforms to join now and learn together. Share some posts with each other or start a Hangout (my favorite function!).
3. Start setting up circles of your brand’s communities. Think of segmenting them just like you would segment targeted mailing lists. We are assuming that one could share circles built in one’s personal profile over to the brand, so much of your targeting prep work can be done here and now.
4. Start collecting Google+ profiles now of your customers, industry experts, and other important influencers – just like Twitter handles in 2009 or phone numbers in 1940.
5. Get your photo to show up in Google searches. This is a great little tip I found from the always-informativemarketing blog by Jim Connolly.
6. Watch what the beta test brands are doing. Check out Ford.
This Saturday at FranCamp in Nashville, I will be leading a roundtable lunch discussion on Google+ for Franchise Systems with my friend Deb Evans. If you’re in the area and interested n social marketing or franchising – or just want a good reason to go spend a day in Music City – please join us! Agenda and registration details below:
I’m looking forward to leading a discussion at this month’s Social Media Breakfast Chicago at Sprint in Chicago on the topic of Google+. I’m interested to hear how participants are using G+ now and what their plans are for business pages when they are finally rolled out. We will share some ideas for getting your brand ready for the business pages launch.
If you were able to jump in fast enough to SMB Chicago’s registration, I’ll see you there (it’s now sold out). If not, do yourself a favor and subscribe to the email list to get on the list for future SM Chicago events here.
Thanks to all participants in PRSA Chicago’s September luncheon with Chicago agency leaders. I enjoyed moderating this panel of our city’s communications leaders and appreciate the excellent questions asked by attendees and via Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and this blog. Edward Bury wrote an excellent summary of the discussion here on his PR Dude Blog.
L-to-R: Jack Monson, Engage121; Rick Murray, Edelman; Maxine Winer, Fleishman-Hillard; Bill Zucker, Ketchum
Social Geek Blog 