Continue reading »]]> For almost 7 years I have taken on clients as a social media strategist.  Helping to create angles for the their social media approach for getting their initiative up-and-running has always been a blast for me but alas, I find that almost 70% of the people I have worked with have “stopped working out” and their social media has turned into flab.

Like a gym membership, at the beginning everyone is excited.  They have made the commitment to make a change in how they go about focusing on the results they want to achieve.  The first few weeks you show up at the gym and really work out hard.  Your excited that you can feel the difference and if done right, see the difference.  But once again, around the comfort zone of seeing some results, you start to cut back on some of your days, and eating habits.  After a couple of months, that 70% of people are back at their old weight and even might be a bit larger – flabby.

Just like my gym membership example, this is exactly what happens when you’re social media begins to lose steam – flabby content or even worse, losing your consumer following.  Like working out at the gym, the first few months are considered the toughest.  Getting conditioned and into a routine takes time.  Then once you hit your desired stride, you just maintain.

For me, I would start a new gym routine that would be 5 days a week with various routines until I get to the way I wanted to look.  Then I scaled back almost 50% to work the targeted areas where I needed to improve.  This is exactly how you need to approach your social media mission.  GO-GO-GO!!!!

Continue reading »]]> I have to say, I can’t tell you how stoked I am to hear that Gov. Abercrombie is calling for faster internet speeds in Hawaii from our internet service providers.  Hawaii currently ranks 31 in internet speed in the nation but the goal of 1 gigabit might not be here until 2018.

“We want to take it into every household,” Abercrombie said at an event announcing the plan. “And we want to take it at a level that assures ubiquitous access.”  But as usual, there are speed bumps in the request for the internet speed pump.

The current situation is that service providers don’t see the need for faster speeds because the public and businesses in Hawaii are not calling out for the services.  For the service providers, it’s not about just turning the juice up, it’s building a whole new infrastructure.  Don’t know about Hawaiian Tel but for Oceanic Time Warner, it’s a big order.

Hawaii Broadband Task Force chairman David Lassner has his work cut out for him.  His mission to get to the next level of a major internet speed-boost is trying to convince Hawaii businesses of the benefits.  Richard Lim, the director of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism is in total agreement with Abercrombie and Lassner.  He stand on the position that an increase of internet speeds would increase the productivity of the state.

For me, another approach might be to just double current speeds and look at the long-tail of Hawaii’s overall media production sector.  With Hawaii becoming the tropical center for Hollywood production, having faster internet speeds mean faster transfers.  As well, local production companies can invest in more online production targeting Asian audiences.

Continue reading »]]> Getting lost in the world of posting content on Facebook as a business is becoming more obvious to me.  The average personal profile has about 35 “likes” on business pages and soon, Facebook will compete with the Google+ tactic of Circles – separating business from personal in the streams.

So how can you get the best results out of a “call-to-action” post on Facebook?  Build a Social Media Collaborative with non-compete businesses in your area.  What this means is that you set up a promotional alliance between you and other companies in your area that can benefit from cross-promotions.  Here’s how it works….

If you are a destination here in Hawaii, then form a social media alliance with a restaurant, food truck, surfboard shop or any other non-competitive business.  In the case of being a destination, you don’t want to partner up with another destination unless they are two totally different experiences.  However, competition for the travel dollar is still stiff so use your discretion.

Now in unilateral support of each other, cross promote events/deals/happenings on your Facebook business page and tag the business that is having the event.  Not only does that brand the events, but it brands you as a supporter = feel-good campaign.

Continue reading »]]> Without a doubt, each state in the United States is it’s own brand.  It’s the mission of each states marketing team to constantly spin the reasons why you should either visit or come move your life and business to it’s location.

But Hawaii has the most unique brand out of all the states.  It’s a brand that is about the culture and the spirit of the people; it’s the ALOHA state.  It’s the state that brands it’s image on reconnecting to life, ones self and put all the rest of your stress at ease.

Ask any visitor who has come to Hawaii about their memories and you’ll automatically hear stories about the beach’s, the people, the food, the traditions and the culture.  Hawaii is the Zen Zone for the world.

So with the leading state brand of Aloha, are you integrating the movement into your brand?  Not every product coming from Hawaii needs an injection of Aloha but most of what we do here in Hawaii is done with Aloha.  Think about ways that you can add some Aloha to your content that you distribute online.  Sometimes it’s just part of your signature or a saying but without a doubt, products from Hawaii are pre-branded with Aloha – make use of it.

Continue reading »]]> Enter the world of Brand Reputation Management!  Review sites like Yelp have made their mark with crowed-sourcing reviews on business, possibly YOUR business.  Did you get bad reviews, good reviews, disgruntled employee reviews, brand-mobbing reviews?

Most people with businesses that have been Yelped are now understanding the power of peoples opinions; good or bad.  From restaurants to doctors, plumbers to airlines, service providers to destinations, you are going to get Yelped and you better be ready to listen and learn.

With about 85% of my clients having Yelp reviews, almost all of them can gleam something from it.  In almost all the cases, I have been able to show my clients how Yelp reviews can help grow their brand and change elements of their services if the negative issues are consistent.    But there is a dark side of Yelp and it’s becoming more of a chore to those who are concerned with their online branding.  But Yelp is not the only game in the online review spin.

I have had clients that have unjustly been targeted with bad ratings by everything from ex-employees to brand-swarming and it shows up poorly on search engines.  On top of that, Yelp has a filter system that has no real sensible algorithm and aimlessly dumps good reviews out of the ratings system and visibility of the person searching. But are you a hostage to Yelp?  Good news is NO!

There are programs that I have started for clients that use the same review tactics of Yelp but with other review sites like Google Map, City Search, Yahoo Directory, Urban Spoon, Yellow Pages and other review based sites.  Now, I’m not going to give it away but I think I gave you enough to let your creativity start.  You might not be able to push Yelp reviews out of your top ten in searches, but you can push them down.

If you search your brand and there is only Yelp reviews, encourage your brand loyalists to review on other directory sites.  That’s more ratings for you in results and at the end of the day, it’s competition for Yelp on positioning during search results!

Continue reading »]]> This is no real news to the HTA (Hawaii Tourism Authority) but to the new “click and mortar” companies opening in Hawaii, it might be one of the most overlooked targets of their marketing.  The HTA’s challenge of trying to recover from a double digit decline in Asian visitors this year it doesn’t mean that Asian consumers are not buy Hawaii based products.

Other obvious economic signs that we should be looking towards the west is the state of the mainlands economy.  Thought the mainland and Canada are still a large part of our tourism base, even a 5 % drop can cause loss of businesses and jobs.  This Holiday season will be a big sign on how summer of 2012 will perform, or not.

Hawaii holds the most segmented Asian population in the United States which means that the communication possibilities to reach the Asian market is enormous.  Yet I still see a major hole in brand penetration to the west in regards to preparing content in different languages.

This is pretty simple.  If you speak Japanese, release content in Japanese too.  Using the same keyword and content strategies you can break into other language search engine results.  Don’t be afraid to take a blog that you already posted and convert it into the other language that you speak and re-post it.  But beware, you should REALLY speak the language that you are marketing to.  If you use a translation program to get your content out to multiple languages then it can make you look uneducated to the potential customer.