The Social Media Marketing & Communications guide for Natural Health and Wellness insiders.

Are Stock Photographs Hurting Your Brand?

Happy families… Perfect smiles… 40-ish couples tussling on the beach… Worry-free seniors in spotless golfing whites…

Stock photography provides inexpensive images to communicate every emotion imaginable to every psychographic imaginable on behalf of your brand. It’s like a miracle panacea for designers.

Or is it?

Don’t you want to take every opportunity possible to communicate what’s special and unique about your brand?

Relying on stock photos for your company website (and enewsletters, brochures, products etc) basically tells your prospects “Sorry, we have nothing original to offer you.”

Natural health and wellness companies are notorious offenders. If I see one more stock image of a drop of water falling into a pool of soft blue ripples or a twenty something woman in a bike helmet on a natural health product website I might just have to poke my eyes out.

How Keith Ferrazzi Used a Marketing Blunder To STRENGTHEN His Brand

FLUUUUSH. That’s the sound of your hard-won brand reputation going down the toilet.

How can you bounce back from a marketing campaign that turned your fans off? And how do you balance your brand’s inherent humanity and generosity with the need to motivate customers to take ACTION?

Read the following story (and lessons learned) from one of my mentors: Keith Ferrazzi. I call him a mentor, but truth is – I’ve never met him. He’s a mentor because he’s taught me so much over the years through his generous blog posts and other writing.

He’s been so valuable to me that I forgave him immediately when he started sending out cheezy emails promoting his teaching program (although I have to admit, I did turn off my listening ears).

Buyer Personas: What Natural Health Businesses Need to Learn to Sell Effectively

Who are your customers REALLY?

Trying to target a generalized market leads to generic messaging that fails to resonate with anyone.

How well do you actually know your target market? Do you know the names of your top 10 customers? Do you know what they eat for breakfast, what they’re most afraid of in life and what they hope to do in their old age?

Too many businesses (B2C and B2B) in the health food industry sketch a broad composite of a single target demographic, then spend a fortune thrusting marketing and advertising “out there” hoping to entice prospects. Problem is, you likely have at least three distinct types of people that are perfectly suited to buy from you, each for different reasons.

Creating Buyer Personas helps solve this problem. Tech companies spearheaded the concept, and it goes something like this:

Hallelujah! Christmas Food Court Flash Mob Video – Why Alphabet Photography’s YouTube Gift Went Viral

Alphabet Photography just scored a major hit with a video on YouTube titled: “Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus – Must See!”

As of today – nine days after it was uploaded – 1,665,014 people have viewed the video. Over 2500 people have commented on YouTube. It’s being passed around twitter and facebook.

Why has it struck such a nerve? I think part of the answer relates to the number one Social Media success principle (see The GIVE Principles) that I teach my clients and readers: Be Generous.

What MommyBloggers Can Teach Natural Health Brands About Marketing

Nummies Bras Website - simple and effective

I’ve always admired so-called “MommyBloggers.” They get it. They know how to leverage their brands through social media. They engage their networks with apparent ease, transparency and effectiveness. They make it look so easy, like it just comes naturally. Maybe it does. After all…

• Moms like to socialize and talk to each other. When a product or idea helps them, they tend to evangelize and share it with others.
• Mom oriented businesses often grow out of the personal experience, passion and values of visionary founders. This helps them speak clearly and effectively to the needs of their target market.
• Parenting and childhood are universal themes.

Um, are you seeing any parallels to the world of natural health and wellness?

• Natural health enthusiasts also evangelize products that have enriched, changed or saved their lives.
• Natural health businesses also often grow out of the personal experience, passion and values of visionary founders.
• Health is also a universal theme.

But many natural health businesses struggle with web strategy, social media and online marketing.

What are mommybloggers doing different? What can we learn from them?

Use Google Analytics to Fire Up Your Web Strategy: Tuesday Tweaks

(There’s so much social media advice out there that it can be overwhelming. Tuesday Tweaks are the antidote… simple, step-by-step actions for improving your social media performance. On Tuesdays, but not every Tuesday.)

Martina Iring just published a post reminding us how important Google Analytics is for your web strategy. Fact is, a website without analytics may not be worth building. Luckily, you can add analytics after the fact. Like now.

Here’s my comment on Martina’s post:

To be valuable, your website needs to perform. To measure performance, you need analytics. Websites aren’t written in stone anymore – they’re living evolving things. Keywords, page titles etc need to be tested, evaluated and likely changed over time. Google analytics helps you see what’s working and what isn’t.

Brand Ambassadors: Turning the Idea Upside-Down

The term “Brand Ambassador” has loosely come to mean someone (an enthusiastic customer or superfan) who is influential, loves your brand and tells people about you – officially or unofficially representing your brand. There’s much discussion across the internet about engaging, enrolling and empowering brand ambassadors. A quick Google search will net you plenty of opinions, definitions and examples around the whole concept.

What I want to share isn’t more ideas about conventional brand ambassadorship… it’s about turning the whole idea upside down.

Use Twitter to Turbocharge Your Company’s Tradeshow Success in Just 3 Easy Steps

I Went to the Vancouver Health Show 2010 and I Have Two Questions

I scored tickets to last weekend’s Vancouver Health Show at the new convention centre, so I brought my family down to have a look around.

The first thing I thought was “Did anyone actually pay to get in here?” (No, that’s not one of my two questions.) The tickets had a $10 price-tag on them, but no-one at the door actually checked my ticket. Doesn’t exactly add to one’s “perceived value” of an event.

I headed straight to the back of the hall to see Michael Murray ND speak on the topic of his new book: “What The Drug Companies Won’t Tell You And Your Doctor Doesn’t Know.” His information was well organized and his arguments were compelling. ie – Drug companies are grossly misleading the public, government agencies are largely in their pocket, and the natural health industry is the strongest force currently taking them to task. Preaching to the choir in my case, but I gleaned some good specific examples and felt grateful that this man is on his mission.

Question #1:

Why would gifted health professionals and spokespersons be in virtual HIDING from the people that matter most to their success?

Facebook Advertising: Why Are Businesses Getting It So Wrong?

I clicked on a Facebook ad recently and was reminded how easy it is for businesses to miss the mark and alienate their audience. The ad I clicked promised a specific product for a specific price, then directed me to the advertiser’s homepage.

Here’s a screenshot of the ad:

The homepage where I got dumped had no mention of the deal advertised. I had a look around the site but couldn’t find the $695 offer.

I was irked, but curious. What were they thinking? Did they hope that the ad would get me to their website, then I would forget all about the promise of a week long getaway for $695 and just sign up for their (much) higher priced packages? Was this a bait and switch? Or did they think I’d take the time to search their site for the advertised deal?

So I emailed them. Here’s the email thread:

Friends, Fans, Followers and Contacts – An Argument For LESS

Whether it’s Facebook fans or friends, Twitter followers, or LinkedIn connections – there’s an almost unchallenged belief that more is better when it comes to Social Media numbers.

If Social Media channels were simply free advertising, perhaps this would be true. After all, the value of any advertising vehicle has traditionally been determined largely by its reach – ie: The value (and cost) of advertising is proportional to the number of people it reaches.

But Social Media is a different game – a game where “advertising” is generally the least effective approach and where numbers can be misleading.

Focus Your Attention and Build Engagement on Twitter with ConversationList

(There’s so much social media advice out there that it can be overwhelming. Tuesday Tweaks are the antidote… simple, step-by-step actions for improving your social media performance. On Tuesdays, but not every Tuesday.)

Many thought leaders agree that “engagement” is an important aspect of any Social Media business plan, but I continue to see many natural health and wellness businesses struggling to engage people online.

Conversationlist is a free tool that helps you build engagement on Twitter.

Rethinking Viral: Why Viral Video Doesn’t Always Live Up to the Hype

Re-Thinking Viral Video

“Let’s make this go viral.”

“We need a viral video!”

“How can we use viral marketing to promote this?”

When people talk about a video or an idea “going viral” they generally mean that it spreads to many people quickly and cheaply, that it builds it’s own steam – without a lot of investment from whoever spawned it. Obviously that’s a very attractive prospect to marketers.

But with all the hype about viral, some very important points can get missed.

Here are two problems with the whole “viral” concept:

What I Learned From The CulturedCare “Free Gum” Twitter Giveaway

A twitter giveaway or contest can be a great way to get people talking about your brand or product.

A well-conceived twitter event can connect you to new markets, grow your twitter follower numbers, generate word-of-mouth interest and even get you media attention… all of which are potential building blocks for sales and growth.

If done right, your twitter event will also boost your search engine rankings (SEO), driving new visitors to your website… often overnight.

Tuesday Tweaks: Set Up Hootsuite for Twitter!

(There’s so much social media advice out there that it can be overwhelming! Tuesday Tweaks are the antidote… simple, step-by-step actions for improving your social media performance. On Tuesdays, but not every Tuesday.)

Are you still tweeting from Twitter.com? Do you find it cumbersome and wonder why they don’t make a more user-friendly interface? There IS a good reason.

Rather than try to please everyone, they keep their design basic and make their data available to third party developers. This means there are dozens (hundreds?) of different twitter “programs” “clients” “apps” “platforms.” Whatever you wanna call em, they all organize twitter data in their own unique way, giving users choices of how they want to view tweets and interact with their twitter communities.

The ONE Thing Your Website, Blog or Facebook Page Absolutely MUST Have…

It’s not any particular function, plug-in or widget. It’s not a sign-up box or RSS feed. Those things don’t apply equally across the board. I’m suggesting that what virtually ALL websites (and web strategies) must have to be successful today is… flexibility.

Here’s why:

Why Your Social Media Strategy Isn’t Working

Even if I don’t know you, I bet I know why your social media strategy isn’t working.

Reason Number One:
You don’t really have a strategy.

The Cheshire Cat says to Alice “If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will do.”

Do you know where you want social media to take your business?

Do you have a clear, specific outline for what you’re trying to accomplish… and why? Can you connect the dots between your social media strategy and your overall business objectives? Rather than re-invent the wheel, from here I’ll point you toward Shannon Paul’s excellent post on the topic.

Reason Number Two:
You’re Thinking With The Wrong Brain.

Tuesday Tweak: Embed Twitter Search Columns in Your Website or Blog

(There’s so much social media advice out there that it can be overwhelming! Tuesday Tweaks are the antidote… simple, step-by-step actions for improving your social media performance. On Tuesdays, but not every Tuesday.)

When Prairie Naturals asked me to help them generate conversation about their ReCleanse Whole Body Herbal Detox program, I wanted to do something that hadn’t been done in this industry before.

Hence… “The ReCleanse 7 Day Twitter Review.”

Starting today, about twenty participants will tweet in real time about their experience using the program.

The details of “The ReCleanse 7 Day Twitter Review” are on their Facebook page, but what I really want to share with you right now is Hootsuite’s tool for embedding a twitter search column directly into your website or blog.

Twitter for Business – CNHR Article for natural health retailers

Social Media Happy Surprises – Stories from the Frontline of Natural Health

Social Media is full of happy surprises. Unexpected opportunities are a fringe benefit of participation. Many companies initially enter social media with hopes of quickly “driving sales,” but the smart people usually discover other benefits to the bottom line… Benefits to PR, HR, and the larger sales cycle, plus personal connections with the people who matter most to their business.

Here are four Social Media Happy Surprise stories from Nature’s Path, Naturally Savvy, Edible Vancouver and CulturedCare Probiotics.

Nature’s Path

“A great surprise Nature’s Path experienced through Twitter was when we were able to connect with our local Board of Trade for an initiative to help the homeless. The Board of Trade put out a call on Twitter to local companies to donate products to a program it was launching to deliver food, water and first aid supplies to homeless and vulnerable communities in our area. We just happened to see the post and were able to deliver product the next day. It was such a good news story, that it was reported in our local media.”

Kylie – Nature’s Path
http://www.naturespath.com/
http://twitter.com/naturespath