LightThread - Strategy, Social Media, Marketing, Product Development & Business Consulting

Links for July

Simon Kuo — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 06:56:07 +0000

In our desire to be helpful, we present a number of resources that we think businesses that service the web community-at-large will find useful:

1) Ten free online books for web designers:

http://webdesignledger.com/freebies/10-free-online-books-for-web-designers

2) Ten crowdsourced music video projects:

http://mashable.com/2010/07/25/crowdsourced-music-videos/

3) Top 20 sites to improve your Twitter experience:

http://mashable.com/2010/07/25/improve-twitter-experience/

4) The most common mistakes SaaS providers make:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2010/07/saas-lessons-learned.php

5) Tips on finding and approaching angel investors

http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/07/tips-on-finding-and-approachin.php

Until next time, cheers!!!

Where’s the “Product” in “Social Media?”

Simon Kuo — Mon, 03 May 2010 02:04:03 +0000

Lately it seems like “Social Media” has become “Social Marketing.” Do a Google search on “Social Media” and many of the links lead to marketing related information. Also, I don’t know about you but a sizable number of my Twitter followers seem to be pushing social media marketing. But there are many dimensions to social media. It is, after all, merely a collection of online interactive publishing and interpersonal connection capabilities that can be used for many purposes, including customer care, product development, non-marketing communications…the list goes on. Even if one does focus on the marketing aspects of social media, where and when are the discussions on product strategy occurring? If a key approach for social media communications is being authentic, how does one market a bad product using social media? Do you honestly reveal the shortcomings of your product? To market a product authentically and effectively, does the social media strategy planning need to begin with how to engineer great products, followed by how to market them socially in an effective manner? I really think that the answer to both of these questions is “yes.” To frame this simply, I think there is a chain of trust that exists that includes product, users/referrers for the product and purchasing decision-makers. If word of mouth marketing results in a sale to a purchaser who is not subsequently happy with the purchase, the chain of trust is broken. And that break might occur with a poor product or a poor word of mouth referral that doesn’t accurately address the needs of the purchaser. What do you think?

Free State Social

Simon Kuo — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:59:26 +0000

We only have three words for you “Free State Social.” Yup, from nowhere to one of the pre-eminent social media conferences in the midwest. If you aren’t going, you should be. At the very least join the Free State Social TweetUp in downtown Lawrence, Kansas, listed as a Gowalla Trip on the evening of May 29. The list of attendees for this meeting is amazing. The speakers are among some of the most influential in social media circles today. I’m betting there are going to be some scintillating conversations before, during and after the sessions.

Here’s what the meeting will be covering:

•Customer service
•Personal branding
•Blogger outreach
•News coverage
•Location-based social networking
•Future of social media

Chris Brogan has said (from the Free State Social website): “The good stuff is happening in the heart of America. It’s not just New York and LA that know what media can do for business. Lawrence is yet another hotspot of inventive, entrepreneurial spirits who see the new Web as a business tool par excellence.”

We’re going to be there. We hope we see you there too!

Matt Haeck, Showigniter and Social Music

Simon Kuo — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:28:17 +0000

It has been a busy few months here at Lightthread. Between launching a new business, winding down some projects and beginning lots of new ones, we’ve been a little derelict with our blogging duties. But on the other hand, it’s important also to recognize that blogging isn’t our business, just one of the many activities associated with it!

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting Matt Haeck (@matthaeck on Twitter), Randolph Robisno (@randolphrobisno) and Joe Garner (@joegarner) as they made Lightthread offices their Kansas City “Softlegs” tour stop. They had never visited here before and we were happy to show them a few local places like The WestSide Local before they played for an enthusiastic audience.

Matt’s stop was part of our promotion and development effort for Showigniter, an online music service that brings together bands, fans and venues. The system works like this: bands create an offer in any one of 328 markets that Showigniter currently supports, they publish the offer through social media channels like Facebook or Twitter and fans and sponsors pledge to bring the band to that city. No money is paid up front, but if enough money is pledged, the show ignites, the band and venue are paid and the band plays the show. Neat isn’t it?

We hope that a whole bunch of bands that otherwise find the logistics of booking tours cumbersome or frustrating will find the system useful and like Matt, Randolph and Joe, it will enable them to play cities they’ve never visited before. But this system and this new approach to bringing live music to your town won’t succeed without YOU. We love the idea of using Showigniter to book shows in non-traditional venues like house parties and to help bands from the indy music scene who might be still building their fan base to create gigs in places they otherwise wouldn’t have visited.

We are eager to hear your input, so feel free to leave comments!

Our hats also go off to Matt, Randolph and Joe for a fantastic concert!! There’s nothing like hearing their soulful tunes and soaring harmonies with friends in an intimate setting! We highly recommend that you catch them if you are near Nashville or happen to run across them on tour!

Here’s the live video that was recorded during the concert (By the way, early sound problems with UStream are fixed later in the recording)

FESTworks

Simon Kuo — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:36:57 +0000

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Social Media and Natural Disaster Communication & Relief

Simon Kuo — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:58:47 +0000

The earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12 has again highlighted the increasing role of social media channels in major emergencies. Like the 2009 earthquake in China or the Southern California wildfires, information on Haiti is being disseminated through Twitter and Facebook, among other new media sources. In many ways these aren’t channels that replace traditional methods of communication. Rather think about them as channels that can be used to transmit information directly from those who are experiencing the catastrophe in real time, to those who can do things to help in real time, without editing or delay. In addition many traditional news organizations like The New York Times, CNN.com and National Public Radio also use Twitter to publicize their usual news stories and provide up-to-date information.

Lisa Qualls, LightThread’s chief development officer and current president of social media club, Kansas City, was recently interviewed by Action News on the topic.

These new channels have advantages and disadvantages. The information that is sent is fast and real-time. Because it is unfiltered it can also be misleading and incomplete. Balancing traditional and social information sources provides the best comprehensive approach whether one is mobilizing help, sending information to sources of aid, or simply keeping up to date on what is happening somewhere.

Besides communication social media is also being used to raise funds for disaster relief. Celebrities are using social media to publicize their giving efforts and Wyclef Jean’s use of Twitter through his Yele Foundation has been widely publicized. More traditional disaster relief organizations offering the ability to share their messages of giving through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and texting are also relatively new. Two examples of the latter include mGive and The Mobile Giving Foundation which are both communicating and facilitating contributions to the Red Cross for Haiti disaster relief.

Although convenient, these methods are sometimes not as quick as they seem, nor as easy. For example, the Salvation Army found that although they had received $50,000 for Haiti Relief from Canadian citizens by Thursday, two days after the disaster, three times the amount was originally sent to them through text messages, but only a third of those texting confirmed the donation with the required follow up texts; also, the process for depositing the money in Red Cross bank accounts can take up to 90 days.

A final concern associated with the newness and rapidity of social media effected contributions to disaster relief is its use by the unscrupulous to run disaster relief scams. The following tips have been offered by the FBI to assist consumers in detecting Haiti disaster relief scams:

Do not respond to any unsolicited (spam) incoming e-mails, including clicking links contained within those messages.

Be skeptical of individuals representing themselves as surviving victims or officials asking for donations via e-mail or social networking sites.

Verify the legitimacy of nonprofit organizations by utilizing various Internet-based resources that may assist in confirming the group’s existence and its nonprofit status rather than following a purported link to the site.

Be cautious of e-mails that claim to show pictures of the disaster areas in attached files because the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders.

Make contributions directly to known organizations rather than relying on others to make the donation on your behalf to ensure contributions are received and used for intended purposes.

Do not give your personal or financial information to anyone who solicits contributions: Providing such information may compromise your identity and make you vulnerable to identity theft.

WordPress vs. Tumblr – A Simple Overview

Lisa Qualls — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 06:12:38 +0000

The ever evolving world of blog platforms can be confusing so we try to help our clients understand the basic differences between the options they are considering.

Functionality & Control

We understand your current personal site is on an Apple platform and requires developer assistance to make changes. Our proposal includes a quote for Tumblr and a quote for WordPress. A WordPress selection can easily be expanded to replace your current Apple site if you choose. WordPress is a robust Customer Management System that has an easy user back-end that allows for page, plug-in, widget and sidebar updates to be made by non-tech experts. WordPress can support multi-page navigation and serve as a robust and comprehensive website with database management and control. Wordpress is hosted on a server that is user controlled allowing better control over stats and personalization.

Cost and Usability

Tumblr is typically cheaper as it does not require the installation and configuration that WordPress does due to its robust platform. Tumblr offers an extremely user friendly dashboard that makes updating posts easy for text and media alike. Tumblr is also easy to update from your mobile device. WordPress also offers a fairly simple to use back-end and supports multiple media formats.

Design, Customization and Integration

With WordPress you can create different layouts for internal pages, posts and your homepage. Tumblr on the other hand is limited with one type of page layout that must be applied on every page on the site. WordPress supports widgets/plug-ins that can easily be added/customized without hard coding vs. Tumblr that must be custom coded for plug-in functionality. WordPress allows you to include native calendars and contact pages which mean you can update them all from the same WordPress back-end. Tumblr can support calendar and contact pages but only from third party sites that requires a separate log-in from the Tumblr back-end.

Search Engine Optimization, Ads and Performance

WordPress is very friendly with the search engines and can be easily optimized with various plug-ins added to the back-end. WordPress can also easily support Ad’s which can be placed in different places on different pages as you choose. Wordpress also has cleaner code in the back-end which allows for faster performance providing a better user experience.

The ever evolving world of blog platforms can be confusing so we try to help our clients understand the basic differences between the options they are considering. Sometimes discussions regarding platform benefits seem to gbe geared toward programmers making it frustrating and hard to understand for someone who doesn’t make a living writing code. Therefore, we created this quick and easy overview to help our non-techy friends grasp the “so what?” of both platforms. We would love to hear from you on what we need to add or simplify even further.

Functionality & Control

WordPress can easily replace your current website if you choose. WordPress is a Content Management System that has an easy to use back-end that allows page, plug-in, widget and sidebar updates to be made by the non-technical. WordPress can support multi-page navigation and serve as a robust and comprehensive website with database management and control. Wordpress is hosted on a server that is user controlled allowing better control over stats and personalization.

Cost and Usability

Tumblr is typically cheaper less expensive to implement as it does not require the installation and configuration that WordPress does. Tumblr offers an extremely user friendly dashboard that makes updating posts easy for text and media alike. Tumblr is also easy to update from mobile device.

Design, Customization and Integration

Search Engine Optimization, Ads and Performance

We hope to hear even more benefits from you!

What you need to know BEFORE creating a Social Media Strategy

Lisa Qualls — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:30:33 +0000

We are preparing to meet with a potential new client who happens to be in the franchise business. They are evaluating overhauling their brand to address some PR challenges they have faced the past year. Before we can help them, we need to learn more about them. In order to brainstorm social media strategy options, we need to establish a baseline of performance, process, and expectations.

We put together the following agenda list for our first meeting together. If you are thinking about creating a social media strategy, you may want to consider answering these questions first. Please keep in mind this list was created for a company who is recruiting franchises so if this is not applicable to you then please replace “franchise” with “customer.” Also, the list was created for a specific client in mind, depending on certain factors the questions may be altered. If you’re not sure what to do once you have your answers, then please give us a call, we would love to help you!

1. Messaging

b. What is the brand identity they want created?

c. When people hear your company, what do they want those people to think?

d. Is their primary purpose to recruit new franchises, engage with existing franchises or make the general public aware of the company services?

2. Resource availability

a. What resources are used today for marketing and customer/franchise service?

b. Do they have a resource available to write blog posts, update facebook (I saw that there last update was in November), comment on forums?

c. Do their resources fully understand the online landscape? Are they aware of how to identify, engage and manage top influencers?

d. Do they have the tools and metrics available to monitor and measure progress?

3. Customer engagement

a. How do they address customer/franchise service today? Do they have an 800 number? Email?

b. Are they prepared to appropriately engage with negative sentiment?

c. Do they have a process to respond digitally to requests/comments?

d. What is their expectation regarding timely responses?

4. Marketing

a. What marketing are they doing today?

b. Are they participating in online marketing such as Pay Per Click, Banner Ads, Facebook ads, etc?

c. What marketing support do they provide to Franchises?

d. Do they offer promotions/discounts/contests? If so, how often?

e. Do they sponsor anything?

5. Franchise Recruitment/Support

a. Do they include online marketing as part of the marketing support to Franchises?

b. Do they offer a specific site/resource portal/discussion board for Franchises?

c. How are they targeting/recruiting Franchises?

d. How often do they pro-actively check-in with Franchises? Messaging:

1. Messaging

What is the message you are trying to convey?
What is the brand identity you want created? What are your brand attributes?
When people hear (your company name), what do you want those people to think?
Is your primary purpose to recruit new franchises, engage with existing franchises or make the general public aware of the company services?

2. Resource availability

What resources are used today for marketing and customer/franchise service?
Do you have a resource(s) available to write blog posts, update facebook (I saw that there last update was in November), comment on forums?
Do you resources fully understand the online landscape? Are they aware of how to identify, engage and manage top influencers?
Do you have the tools and metrics available to monitor and measure progress?

3. Customer engagement

How do you address customer/franchise service today? Do you have an 800 number? Email?
Are you prepared to appropriately engage with negative sentiment?
Do you have a process to respond digitally to requests/comments?
What is your expectation regarding timely responses?

4. Marketing

What marketing are you doing today?
What is your marketing mix?
Are you participating in online marketing such as Pay Per Click, Banner Ads, Facebook ads, etc?
What marketing support do you provide to Franchises?
Do you offer promotions/discounts/contests? If so, how often?
Do you sponsor anything?

5. Franchise/Recruitment Support

Do you include online marketing as part of the marketing support to Franchises?
Do you offer a specific site/resource portal/discussion board for Franchises?
How are you targeting/recruiting Franchises?
How often do you pro-actively check-in with Franchises?

We hope this helps give you a jump start to considering how you can adopt social media in to your business model. As always feel free to give us a call if you want to learn more.

Cheers,
Lisa

We Have Client Lift Off!

Lisa Qualls — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:12:48 +0000

The Associated Plastic Surgeons website has truly been the end result of a great team effort between a group of us here in Kansas City. With an SEO expert, a user experience designer/brand identity expert, a seasoned project manager and bizdev expert, a talented front-end web developer, an amazing photographer and a client willing to revamp their entire brand and catapult themselves forward, how could we go wrong? In every area we’ve been able to improve their brand design, site traffic, SEO, tradeshow collateral and ecommerce site. We even introduced them to a little bit of social media creating their first-ever blog that has already generated almost 40 comments!

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE, CUSTOMIZATION, & STELLAR DESIGN

We designed a user experience and information architecture that led us to developing the “How We Can Help You” section making it easy for visitors to quickly find what they need. We built back-end functionality to automatically highlight the most recent blog posts on the front page to keep content fresh and up-to-date. We placed a “contact us” button in the middle of the page to facilitate user action. The photography on the home page was done just for this site. The design aesthetic was selected to represent the client’s working philosophy to provide their patients with quality, attentive and flawless care.

COPYWRITING & MEDIA GENERATION

We wrote all the copy on the website…all 40-plus pages worth! We created a customized before/after gallery to show the amazing skills of the doctors. We utilized custom photography throughout the site to provide users a view in to what the practice really looks like. We included a “related links” section to support simple navigation and help drive users to other places throughout the site that may be helpful to them.

INTEGRATED MARKETING & PRINT COLLATERAL

In the blog post sample above you can see a postcard we designed to use at the Holiday Mart tradeshow. We also designed a backdrop banner with their logo and the textured background we used for the card. It came out really beautifully! Our developer coded the “share this” functionality specifically for this project, however we are now using this functionality on other client sites as the feedback has been incredibly positive.

E-COMMERCE DEVELOPMENT

As part of the Associated Plastic Surgeon’s brand update and website redesign, we completely refurbished their online store also, where they sell physician-grade cosmetics and skincare products. The store is using the WordPress e-Commerce plugin with some tricked out ways of doing variations, and we’re really pleased with how it’s come out!

Sharing & SEO Improvements

We also added a slew of social sharing capabilities – prior to this redesign the ecommerce store had no variations shown, was difficult to add new products to and offered no sharing or descriptive capabilities. We feel they’re set to do some real online business now, and we have done some things to make this store more competitive in search engines, where it was never found before.

SHARING & SEO IMPROVEMENTS

BRAND IDENTITY

One of our favorite things about the new site is the special logo and identity for the ecommerce store. We did the store under a separate domain name so that we can do Google ads directly to it (bypassing the main website) yet the navigation in the header on both sites seamlessly moves you back and forth. We made this site a rich cream, as opposed to the green APS website, to distinguish them. We found some unique patterns to use inside the logo and for the frames around the product images, and we also like using it as “wallpaper” behind the logo bottles as they appear to sit on a shelf (see the postcard below, used to announce the site launch.) It’s the little things that give this store the stylish appeal we felt it deserved and that buyers wanted to see when shopping for beauty products.

Why did our client like this site? We delivered it per their budget and schedule. In fact, we accelerated the main site’s launch by two weeks to have it ready for the client’s appearance at a 25,000 attendee trade show event. Even better and obviously the most important stat…they are getting new patients as a result of the site…within just days of launch they had two new cosmetic surgery patients! We look forward to future work with APS as they are a fantastic client with a similar philosophy to ours…take good care of your customers and they will come back time and time again.

Highlight Midwest

Simon Kuo — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:54:20 +0000

Highlight Midwest was held a few weeks ago in Des Moines, Iowa. Silicon Prairie News had a team of people there and covered it extensively. You’ll find their stories here. It was a great meeting and reinforced what a terrific entrepreneur community exists in Iowa and how Des Moines’s character of “big town with a small town feel” really means everyone knows and supports everyone else. Here are video highlights of each of the keynotes, with our own CEO, Simon Kuo in the first one:

Joe Olsen, CEO of PhenomBlue:

Mike Draper, owner of SMASH: