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.
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
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.
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 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:
Uncategorized•Comments Off on One of our own announced as new Social Media Club of KC President!
Social Media Club of Kansas City Elects First Executive Board
KANSAS CITY, MO – The Social Media Club of Kansas City announced the results of their first-ever Executive Board elections at their monthly breakfast in October 2009.
Through their Ning community, hundreds of SMCKC members nominated candidates and voted for President and Vice President and board positions in Awareness, Education, Advocacy, Industry Leadership and Technology categories.
Social media use is growing at an accelerated rate, with over 75 percent of online adults in the U.S. interacting with social technology on a regular basis, according to Forrester Research. Newly elected SMCKC president, Lisa Qualls, said giving the local group official leadership will further legitimize the use of social media in the local business community.
“SMCKC started as a grass roots effort less than two years ago and has since experienced tremendous growth,” Qualls said. “With a membership of over 800, and as more businesses begin to use social media, having a well-organized group creates opportunities for members to assist these companies and find new methods for connecting online communities.”
The elected board:
• President: Lisa Qualls
• Vice President: Ryan Flannagan
• Industry Leadership Chair: Mike Burns
• Awareness Chair: Whitney Mathews
• Technology Chair: Jeff Smith
• Education Chair: Mark VanBaale
• Advocacy Chair: Jenn Bailey
• Board Advisor: Ed Roberts
The Executive Board members bring a diverse set of valuable skills to the organization. The group comes from all areas of Kansas City and as far west as Topeka, bringing knowledge in technology, media, project management, marketing and business. The board will focus on making SMCKC networking and education events easily accessible to every interested person in the Kansas City area, as well as highlighting the talent and vision of SMCKC members and cementing the region’s reputation as a national hub for social media innovation.
The next SMCKC breakfast will be held at the Kansas City Café (1532 Grand) on November 6, 2009 at 7:30 a.m.
Social Media Club of Kansas City Executive Board
Lisa Qualls, President – Lisa is co-founder and Chief Development Officer of LightThread, LLC, a next generation strategy, interactive services and web development firm specializing in optimizing business performance and brand. She brings significant professional experience in technology, sales, product development, program management and business operations. Lisa serves as author for two blogs, speaks on social media topics at various events, and enjoys helping businesses learn how new media and technology can make a positive impact to their bottom line. You can find her on Twitter: @lqualls4444
Ryan Flannagan, Vice President – Ryan is the President of Myriad Tech LLC, creating and launching such products as TweetNewz and Geekvolution.com, featured at TechCrunch 50, Demopit 2008 and South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive VIP Room 2009. Ryan also has strong technical expertise, including over four years of experience in social media and project management. He has helped organize the Kansas City Ruby User Group and is an active member of the Lawrence Twitter Group. You can find him on Twitter: @ryanflannagan
Mike Burns, Industry Leadership Chairperson – Mike works as a marketing manager for Shawnee-based Perceptive Software where he applies his 13 years of experience in business communications, proposal development and contract management. He has served as a web editor for The Sporting News Online and HRBlock.com, worked as a proposal manager for Sprint-Nextel, and is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis. You can find him on Twitter: @wrytir
Whitney Mathews, Awareness Chairperson – Whitney is an Online Consultant in social media strategy for the industry-leading Lawrence Journal-World. She works with local and regional businesses to develop and manage their online communities. Whitney studied multimedia journalism at the University of Kansas and was nominated for a 2008 Emmy Award for her online coverage of the Bodies Revealed exhibit at Union Station. She authors a personal blog, speaks on social media at various events and brings an unrivaled passion for Jayhawk athletics to the SMCKC executive board. You can find her on Twitter: @whitneymathews
Jeff Smith, Technology Chairperson – Jeff is a blogger, podcaster and geek. He is a fan of all things social media, technology and the social tools available for us to use for work and play. Jeff’s blog (jeffisageek.net) has gained so much regional attention that he was recently invited to live Tweet from the Kansas City Chiefs press box. You can follow him and his technology discoveries on Twitter: @jeffisageek
Mark VanBaale, Education Chairperson – Mark loves to connect and interact with people and communities via social media. He has served as chairperson for two Kansas City Twestivals, most recently raising money for Wayside Waifs in September 2009. Mark loves to mentor and help others learn how to use social media tools to improve communication among businesses, friends or strangers. You can find him on Twitter @markvanbaale
Jenn Bailey, Advocacy Chairperson – Jenn is a native Rhode Islander who lived in a number of towns before landing in Kansas. She is an active speaker and head of The Social Lites, a business focused on social media education and consultation. When not Tweeting Jenn writes children’s books and roams the world on freelance photography assignments. You can find her on Twitter: @jennbailey
Ed Roberts, SMCKC Founder – Ed is the founder and former lead organizer of SMCKC. He now serves as an advisor to the Executive Board. Ed is a former broadcast meteorologist and the co-owner of LRC Weather, LLC. He is also an award-winning podcaster. You can find his daily Kansas City Weather podcast at kcweather.org. You can find him on Twitter: @EdRoberts
Social Media•Comments Off on Simon Kuo, LightThread CEO, to Speak at Highlight Midwest
(Kansas City, Missouri) – Entrepreneurship, networking and the opportunity to collaborate will be three areas of focus for the second annual Highlight Midwest, scheduled for October 23, 2009 in Des Moines, Iowa. Over 200 participants are expected for the conference. Drawing from the four states of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska, this barcamp-themed meeting will feature some of the most innovative companies in the midwest demonstrating new applications and talking about technology and startups outside of the east and west coasts. Simon Kuo, Ph.D., CEO of LightThread, LLC, a Kansas City-Crossroads area strategy, social media and web development company is scheduled to deliver one of three keynote addresses at the conference.
“This meeting is one of the best I’ve attended as far as meeting other entrepreneurs in a setting that encourages future collaboration.” said Dr. Kuo, “When starting a new business one of your greatest assets will be the partnerships you create with similarly-minded people. I really valued the ideas that were generated from last year’s sessions and I’m looking forward to this year’s event.”
Other companies featured in the day long conference include Dwolla, a web application that allows users to send and receive money, graffititracker, a system to track graffiti for law enforcement and whatthehashtag, the online wiki for Twitter hashtags. Mike Draper, a longtime Iowa-based small business and startup advocate will be another featured speaker.
About LightThread – LightThread, LLC, established in 2008, is a next generation strategy, interactive services and web development firm specializing in optimizing business performance and brand. Through the use of strategy, social media, technology and integrated marketing development, LightThread assists businesses in reaching the next level. For more information about LightThread, LLC please visit: http://www.lightthread.com
Contact: Lisa Qualls (816) 298-9913. email: lisa@lightthread.com
The biggest tech news today was the release of Google Wave to 100,000 beta testers. Because of the limited number of invitations, the usual outrageous behavior by members of the tech community ensued. At one point sources reported that an invitation was being offered on eBay for $5100 dollars. After many of these outlandishly priced offers were pulled, remaining invites were being hawked for a more reasonable $70 to $100 dollars. Similarly Twitter users who tweeted about receiving Wave invitations were flooded with requests from users begging for invitations. At the LightThread office we were lucky enough to have received our invitation at 12:32 a.m. yesterday morning and we wasted no time in trying it out.
When one logs into Wave the very first time, one is greeted with several messages created by the Wave team. Cleverly they actually use Wave to illustrate how it can be used. How’s that for a recursive demonstration?
Though initial reviews highlighted the less-than-enthusiastic response from certain high-profile tech geeks, the usefulness of Wave and its interface design are most apparent when more than one person is using it. It was immediately apparent to us that Wave solves a few of the most obvious issues with the Twitter interface: conversations that are totally sequential yet threaded at the same time. In other words, Twitter’s interface only presents tweets as they occur. Streams of conversations between various people that are threaded have the tendency to become lost in the relentless wash of tweets from everyone else. Google Wave solves that problem by allowing replies to anyone anywhere in the stream of messages. Thus one can have multiple simultaneous real-time conversations with a number of people without losing the thread of any of the simultaneous conversations. Without a doubt this takes a little getting used to–many people aren’t naturally adept at tracking more than one simultaneous conversation–after all how often does this really happen during a verbal discussion? I’m certain however, that people will quickly adapt to this paradigm. Making it easier is the fact that the conversations don’t simply fade into the ether–they persist on the page. The Google Wave team has also incorporated a handy feature–the ability to “play” the wave, step-by-step to catch anything that might have been missed when it occurred in real-time.
As reported previously, the application also allows those participating in a wave to insert videos, graphics and other files. The inclusion of rich media makes this more than simply a many-to-many text messaging application. In addition, gadgets are also supported by Wave. This enables the platform to be extended in ways that will increase its usefulness. Included in the Wave beta are a mapping gadget and an yes/no/maybe gadget. These are both used in demonstrations to highlight their usefulness for tasks like making group plans and planning trips, respectively.
Ultimately, like many new tools and applications, we’ll have a much better understanding of Google Wave and its usefulness after it has been tested by the initial group of users. The LightThread team is looking forward to using Google Wave in our day-to-day activities and we’ll be eagerly reading others’ impressions of the platform in upcoming weeks. We’ll report back to you as our testing continues. In the meantime, if you’re also on the platform, start a wave with us!!
This year’s BarCampKC had a strong turn out with a great collection of developers, entrepreneurs, and technologists. The user generated conference focuses on technology, blogging, and business projects local to the area.
The event was held just down the street from LightThread at JavaPort. I only attended the tail end of the conference but was lucky enough to see John Crawford talk about new happenings with StoreEnvy as well as learning more about CCCKC.+
Below is a short video that gives you a glimpse of the day.
I had the privilege of speaking the Mid-America Project Management Institute’s 2009 Professional Development Days conference this week. Both sessions were great with good questions and active participation. My presentation was titled, “Project Management Tools in the Digital Age” and highlighted web-based, simple, and valuable tools that can be used in any type of company size and industry. We use many of these tools in our day-to-day business to manage our projects, teams and our selves.
It is important to remember that a tool should help you facilitate your work…NOT add more work to your day. You need to understand your work flow and identify where you need help prior to tool selection. Tools should help you create, build, and develop projects; lead, direct and advise your teams/sponsors/clients; assess, measure, and analyze your progress, and most important, be simple to use.
Project Management Tools
Basecamp – We use this tool to manage our virtual workforce teams and to easily communicate with our clients. We are able to set milestones, assign to-do tasks according to milestones, upload files, and communicate through the forums.You can build templates and customize the tool to match your brand. This tool eliminates our dependency on email and allows 24X7 access to project status.
Smartsheet – This tool was recommended by a colleague. For you spreadsheet lovers out there this tool may be the one for you. In addition to basic project management capabilities, you can produce summary reports and access the tool from your phone through their mobile application. A very interesting aspect to Smartsheet is their on-demand workforce. If you need resources to help with simple tasks (primarily research oriented tasks) they have a virtual workforce to help you (for an hourly rate of course).
@Task – This is an enterprise level tool and can be integrated with a variety of applications such as Oracle, Peoplesoft and Salesforce.com. This tool has very impressive reporting capabilities that can support the most detailed of managers and the highest level of executives. If you have large and complex programs this tool may be the one for you.
Team Management Tools
Echosign – I have to say this is my favorite tool lately. Echosign allows you to improve your sales contract cycle time from weeks to hours by allowing online signatures that are in compliance with the ESIGN act making the online signature as powerful as a hand-written one. Red-lining is supported as well as multiple signatures/initials throughout the document. The client/contractor you are requesting to sign does not need to have signed-up for the application and can provide their signature in a matter of seconds. We have had 15 contracts signed in the last month and have yet had anyone experience any issues or confusion…in fact a few of our clients are now using this tool for their business.
Freshbooks – Contractors love this tool so we love it too! Freshbooks make invoicing super easy and helps you keep track of what is paid vs. outstanding. Reporting is included and the open API supports integration with Quickbooks and Basecamp. If you are looking to improve your billing cycle time then we suggest you take a look at Freshbooks.
Dropbox – A backup server that finally doesn’t require you to load the document twice. This application synchronizes with your hard drive automatically! You get 2G of storage free and automatic notification when any file is loaded or changed. A tool that helps you with your current workload, doesn’t require extra work and is so easy grandma can use it.
Self Management Tools
Skype – Yes, many of us online types have been using Skype for awhile but for those new to the “geek” scene this tool is a nice surprise. This VoIP application allows unlimited free domestic calling, video calling and instant messaging with other Skype users. You can also quickly upload files and send resource links during conference calls. The tool integrates with a multitude of address books and allows calls internationally and to non-Skype users for a premium charge.
Remember the Milk – Built with the “Getting Things Done” philosophy this is a great tool to manage all aspects of your life …personal, school and work. They have a variety of mobile app’s to support an on-the-go lifestyle and include map integration that can track where you are to notify you when you are in the vicinity of getting a to-do done. I personally like the tag cloud capability to help me see where my time is being spent and to highlight where I can get two birds with one stone.
Google – The mother of all tools. In addition to gmail, calendar, and google docs we also use google groups, google voice and google reader to help simplify our daily responsibilities. Yes, you do sometimes have a glitch here and there but the flexibility, accessibility and simplicity outweigh any of the bumps you may experience from time to time. What makes us the most excited?? Google Wave invitations go out to a lucky 100,000 on September 30th and we can’t wait to see what new opportunities arise post-launch.
We are always looking for new and improved ways to operate our business so if you have a killer tool that we didn’t mention here please leave us a comment and let us know about it!
lightthread•Comments Off on Lisa Qualls, LightThread’s Chief Development Officer, to Speak at Leading Professional Development Conference
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE / PRURGENT
Kansas City, MO – September 15, 2009. Lisa Qualls, co-founder and chief development officer for Lightthread, LLC, a Kansas City Crossroads-area social media, business strategy and application development company, will be a featured speaker for Professional Development Days 2009, the annual project management conference sponsored by the Mid-America chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI). The conference will be held September 21-22 at the Overland Park Convention Center. For more details please consult http://kcpmichapter.org/pdd.php. Ms. Qualls presentation, “Project Management Tools for the Digital Age,” will provide an overview of software-as-a-service applications that can be leveraged to improve productivity, team management and reduce the cost of managing large scale programs.
“The project manager role is significant and complex at times. A PM is the leader, task master, communicator, risk manager, quality auditor, process coordinator and has budget responsibility. Considering their multitude of duties, it is easy to understand why many are unaware of new solutions that exist to simplify and further improve their management of day-to-day activities,” Ms. Qualls said.
With over 240 thousand members worldwide, the Project Management Institute is the premier, non-profit professional organization for project management, responsible for establishing standards, providing seminars, educational programs and professional certification in the field. The Mid-America chapter of PMI was chartered in 1993 and today has more than 1300 members.
Mitch Holthus, the “voice of the Kansas City Chiefs” will emcee the conference with a keynote speech by Jason Dorsey, recognized as “The Gen Y Guy.”
About LightThread, LLC, established in 2008, is a next generation strategy, interactive services and intellectual venture capital firm specializing in optimizing business performance and brand. Through the use of strategy, social media, technology and integrated marketing development, LightThread assists businesses in reaching the next level. For more information about LightThread, LLC please visit: http://www.lightthread.com
Contact: Lisa Qualls (816) 298-9913. email: lisa@lightthread.com
