Here’s a summary of what we learned together:

Social Media is Distribution

The first thing we touched on – mainly to lessen the anxiety some businesses feel about entering the social media game – was to frame what social media really is…a distribution vehicle. Sure, it’s a powerful one given that traditional media is a one-way communications system whereas social media is about a two way conversation. But if you can think of it as a distribution opportunity, then it changes what’s really important about social media – you need the “stuff”,  the content, to fuel the system.

How Do You Create the “Stuff”?

The focus of the workshop was on how to methodically organize a content creation calendar to fuel your social media outreach. Due to time constraints, we focused on two important areas – stakeholders and your own business

Know Your Stakeholders

Know your audiences…all your audiences. Every organization has a variety of stakeholder groups – customers, shareholders, government, advocacy groups, vendors, your own employees, etc. – that have an impact on how you are perceived in the marketplace. Research your stakeholders, and strive to “paint a picture” about what motivates each group. What motivates them? What are their pressures? How do they talk? Why should they be interested in your organization?

This exercise in itself starts to reveal opportunities for creating content that will appeal to a particular stakeholder group.

Your Own Business Creates Content

The next thing we worked on was looking in the mirror. Each person started by brainstorming and documenting the things each attendee’s organization does. Some examples:

• We hold workshops for our clients
• We cut men’s hair
• We help get performers settled in before show time
• We strive to forge meaningful relationships with providers

Looking at your own operations – what your business does day-to-day – reveals a ton of opportunities for content creation.

Categorize and Think Proactively

Once the attendees finished the brainstorming exercise, each was asked to categorize the day-to-day activities (again, some examples):

• Customer Service
• Events & Promotions
• Performer Relations

These categories help to keep your content efforts organized and focused. When you’re determining what kind of content to create, you should consider these categories, and seek out the experts within your organization that you can leverage for content ideas. For example, the director of customer service probably has a lot stuff going on in her department that could be content worthy.

Producing an Editorial Calendar

Next, we took the categories, and talked about things that were going on right now, or in the near future, around that category. These become your story ideas…these are the things that – if appropriate – could be produced into content sharing opportunities. The final step – though we didn’t actually do this in the workshop because we only had a set amount time – was to show the attendees an example of how these brainstorming exercises are used to produce a editorial calendar. Components of the calendar may include:

• Category
• Story Idea
• Working Title
• Who is the subject matter expert to be interviewed
• What kind of media am I going to employ – blog, video, white paper, etc.
• Where am I going to distribute it – Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• What other content opportunities may arise around this topic in the near future?

Other Content Opportunities

There are lots of other areas where you can focus to find content opportunities that can then be used to fuel your social media system:

• Stakeholder Groups – leverage your stakeholders to develop more content; interview them, and write an article
• Industry News – respond to industry news with your own points of view
• Customer Testimonials – short videos of customers saying good things about you
• Tour your company’s departments – there is something interesting going on in every department… just seek it out
• Talk with trade associations – these are the thought-leaders of your industry, and they are always looking for ways to show off their thought-leadership
• Integrate content curation – organize other peoples content under your brand with tools like Paper.li and Scoop.it (just make sure you give proper credit, and don’t make this your only content effort…people want to hear from you, not the just the things you read and like)

I think it ended up being a productive session for everyone…at least that’s the feedback I got from some of the attendees. Lastly if you haven’t registered yet for Social Madness, there’s still time left. Registration ends on May 15, 2012…so get moving!

We are deep in the throes of another NCAA Basketball Tournament season, and it’s been a pretty excited one so far for us fans.  It hasn’t been very exciting for some Big 10 Teams, but at least Ohio State is keeping its momentum strong.

In Central Ohio, running alongside March Madness, and our high spirits for our hometown team, is another “tournament” called #SocialMadness, a competition launched by Columbus Business First (through the paper’s parent American City Business Journals), and locally sponsored by us – Milenthal-DelGrosso.  Capital One is the national sponsor for this competition.

We are so excited to be affiliated with this promotion, because it aligns directly with what our firm believes in – that the digital media world is critical to business and marketing today.

Why We Sponsored #SocialMadness

Milenthal-DelGrosso is a content marketing and digital production firm.  We strategically create, publish and distribute customized content on behalf our clients.  We help organizations institutionalize an approach to do this constantly and consistently, because if you haven’t noticed, communications is a 24 x 7 x 365 effort today.  Social media is an integral component of how Milenthal-DelGrosso executes a content marketing program for our clients.  #SocialMadness plays right into this thinking.

Our View on Social Media

We view social media as a distribution vehicle for our clients’ messages.  But in order for social media to be effective, you need to have the content…the stuff…to tweet or post.  And you need to have a variety of stuff that is targeted individually at each of your stakeholder groups.

We find that many organizations embrace a social media effort – setting up a Twitter account, a Facebook fan page or a Google+ page – but they then struggle to grow these communities.  It’s not because the organization is immune to the effectiveness of social media.  It’s usually because the organization hasn’t thought about what’s needed upstream…they haven’t crafted a content creation strategy to feed the social media engine.  That’s why we work with clients to make sure there is stuff, so our social media distribution can be effective and break through.

So How We Plan to Leverage #Social Madness

We plan on being very active over the next six months in leveraging our sponsorship of Columbus Business First’s #Social Madness contest.  We will be participating in upcoming events (one in April, one in May).  We will be using the publication to post tips on how to more effectively use social media tools. We are looking into developing a social media webinar series during the contest period.  And we will certainly continue to blog about the contest just because it’s a fun way to generate more interest.

Get Your Business Involved

So if you’re interested in showing off your company’s social media chops, then don’t hesitate to register your business now.  Or, you can nominate another company to participate in the challenge.

Just visit the registration page, and get yourself into the game.  Who knows…you may hit a buzzer beater that thrusts your company into #Social Madness’ national competition!

Good luck, and you’ll be hearing more about this as the weeks go on!

Living a mere 2 blocks from downtown Canal Winchester has a lot of advantages, and attending the Saturday Farmers Market is definitely one of them. The market features produce grown by local farmers and gardners, and is well attended by people looking for wonderfully fresh homegrown bounty at good prices. Beyond that, it’s a time for people to connect with one another and share that special sense of community. It was there early last June when Bruce Jarvis, long-time resident, and Executive Director for Destination Canal Winchester, approached me to talk about creating a piece to promote the newly recognized city as it reached population 5k. It was this initial conversation that gave birth to the idea that if we could document the uniqueness of Canal Winchester, it would inspire in-state tourism and maybe even persuade people to consider our lovely community as home.

Bruce and I quickly made Harvest Moon, a neighborhood coffee shop located at the very center of town our unofficial base of operation. It was through numerous meetings and interviews where Bruce outlined the many events that Destination Canal Winchester was responsible for organizing – Art in the Park, Blues and Ribfest, The Historic Ghost Tour and Christmas in the Village. Bruce explained that these events draw in many visitors to the area which helps promote local shops and restaurants.

The Process that Inspired

I began to document the events and the town through video. I started to discover interesting things and interesting people operating around me that I had missed even after 20 years of living here. I knew about Robert Warren and Dick Weiser, two very well known artists living and working in CW, but there were several other artists working in studios tucked away on second floors and over garages throughout town. I met City Forrester Dick Miller, who speaks passionately about the great natural resources we are fortunate enough to have all around us. Miller, an avid fly fisherman introduced me to another fly-fishing enthusiast in the area, Bruce Baby. He graciously allowed me to capture him at this Zen-like sport one Sunday morning on Walnut Creek.

There were dozens of these little gems – people, events and locations – that showed a quaint and endearing community. And each of these gems would eventually give way to a story that truly would show something unique about my humble city.

It wasn’t until six months later – after completing the last event on the schedule, Christmas in the Village – when I could envision how this story should be told. I had hours of footage…people enjoying a variety of events, families visiting Metro Parks and capturing our historic landmarks, churches, and homes,. I had footage of people riding bikes, walking, golfing; kids skating, swimming and playing sports. Six months of taking 10 minutes of footage here and there started to weave an image of a community that even I could not have imagined at its beginning.

Building the Story, Generating Response

I settled on a simple execution – showing the beauty of our community without narration (meaning no voice over while the video runs, just music); showing the viewer a real homegrown and yet poetic representation of why Canal Winchester is a nice place to visit.

The results of our efforts have been astonishing. Bruce Jarvis hosted a community-wide event to reveal how Canal Winchester would now appeal to potential visitors. Our local news television station – WBNS-TV – ran a feel-good story about our video. And what makes me most proud? The over 3,000 views our video has received in only one month, and sweet response we have received from the community and friends.

The point of the story is this…every community is unique. Every community has hidden gems and energetic events that ignite interest and appreciation for that community. Every community has its story. You just need to document it, and string it together into your story. If you build it, they will come!

Carol DelGrosso, Chief Creative Officer

Carol DelGrosso is chief creative officer at Milenthal-DelGrosso, LLC. She has been a resident of Canal Winchester for over 20-years, and while her personal allegiance is obviously to her own community, her ability through video is representative of the artistic eye she can apply towards “branding your place”. Email her at carold@md-llc.com to start piecing together your community’s unique story.

• 46% of American adults own a smart phone
• 49% of smartphone owners use it while watching TV (think of it, Multi-Tasking equals sales for you)

Is your website mobile-friendly allowing you to engage with your community anytime, anywhere?

Take a look at the Milenthal-DelGrosso site – mobile-friendly vs. computer-friendly:

             

All for as little as $1,000*

“Thanks for the creativity and dedication toward our successful campaign!”–Alicia Notestone Shoults, Ohio Expo Center & State Fair Marketing & Public Relations Director.

Every brand – CPGs, fashion, trade associations, service providers, etc. – is at the center of a community. Your brand is affected by a systemic network of audiences – a network that extends beyond customers and shareholders/funders (for non-profits) to include government, vendors, distributors, non-governmental organizations, advocacy groups, and typically many more. Any of these groups can impact how your brand is perceived and considered. So how you communicate with and inspire that community is critical to your brand’s success.

That’s what Milenthal-DelGrosso does for its clients – we develop and execute marketing programs aimed at building, nurturing and moving our clients’ communities. We call this Community Engagement, and we execute against this philosophy by focusing on three main areas:

So how are you inspiring and nurturing your unique community? It’s time to look at marketing in a whole new way…it’s time to contact Milenthal-DelGrosso to create your Community Engagement program.