Thanks for being curious enough to read this page.
I'm going to make some assumptions since you're here and my primary assumption is that you fall into one of two camps: you're either curious or considering. If you're simply curious, you may have seen something I wrote, heard me speak at a conference, or perhaps just stumbled upon the blog thanks to a link from someone else or a search result. Maybe, just maybe, you thought something along the lines of, "this guy's got some good stuff to say," and you want to know what else I do, and how I might be able to help you. If that's you, welcome. I hope you find something valuable here and get answers to any questions you have. If you're in the "considering" camp then I'll assume you're a little more familiar with me and want to see what I can do for you. If you're considering using Bill Seaver, or a MicroExplosion Media service, I hope you'll remain a considerer (I'm sure that's not a word but you get the point) until you become a client. If you don't find the answers you need here just contact me, and I'll get you taken care of.
So what do I do?
When people ask me what I do, I try to boil it down to this: social media marketing consulting and speaking. That's about as concise I know to make it but inevitably it leads to other questions, which I expect, so I hope I can answer some of them here for you.
I also have a staff that provides a social media monitoring service. Clients of the service use it to keep track of what is said about them on blogs, image sites like Flickr, discussion boards, online video sites like YouTube, mainstream media sites, and microblogging platforms like Twitter. We provide reports daily, weekly, or semi-monthly that tell you how much conversation there is about you and your organization and provide a list of the most influential people talking about you so you know where to engage first. I review the reports and provide analysis and recommendations for your particular organization. If you want to give social media monitoring a shot (beyond Google Alerts) just contact me, and we'll provide you with a free report so you can see if it's something you want to use.
Consulting: Social Media Marketing Training Wheels
I look at my role as a consultant as training wheels on a bike (I'm the training wheels...you're the bike.) The thing about training wheels is that you don't keep them on the bike forever. You put them on knowing they're temporary. When the time is right the training wheels come off, and the cyclist rides without them. That's how I want people to see my consulting. I'm just there for a short time to be the social media training wheels for your marketing bicycle. When our time is done, you should be fully equipped to think like a social media marketer and use the tools effectively. I have been hired to do single day sessions and multi-month consultations. Some companies just want me to get them up to speed with the social media state of the union, while others want me to talk to them specifically about blogging or public relations in the current Internet environment. There's no cookie cutter answer I can give you for the right consulting format for you. It's more important that you know you need training wheels. Once you know you need training wheels, we'll figure out the ones that fit your bike best.
Speaking: Who Knew Social Media Could Be Inspiring Too?
I love speaking to groups about the value of social media marketing and giving real examples of how it's worked for me personally, my clients, and companies worldwide. Sometimes this is just the thing an organization needs to really start making forward progress. The greatest compliment I get from any organization that asks me to speak is when they call back later and invite me back for a future event. Fortunately that's happened several times, and I hope you'll feel the same way if I speak to your organization. Here is a list of various speaking topics I can customize to your organization's needs:
One hour sessions:
- How To Be A Better Blogger: Creating Content That Earns Attention
- PR 2.0: The Deer Have Guns Now, So Be Careful
- Social Media Monitoring: Who Really Owns Your Brand?
- TwitFace: Engaging Better on Twitter and Facebook
- Social Media ROI: Take Your Conversations And Shove Them! (Into A Spreadsheet)
- Online Video: You Don't Need To Go Viral To Win
- The ABC's of Social Media Ethics and Etiquette
Two hour session:
- Social Media Mindset: Marketing In A New Media World
Four hour sessions each:
1. Social Media Boot Camp, Basic Training: Getting Social Media Right And Building Your Own Social Media Plan
The purpose of this half day event is to first get people thinking about social media the right way about social media and then help them understand how to get their own social media plan together so they can begin taking action immediately. The half day session covers the following areas:
- Understanding social media marketing fundamentals
- Discovering marketing shifts and how social media fits in
- How to create content people will want to pay attention to
- Understanding the two keys to every social media action
- Getting started on social media monitoring
- How to measure social media success
- See several cases studies of good and bad social media uses
- The six things every social media marketing plan needs
- How to build your own social media marketing plan
2. Advanced Social Media Boot Camp: Apps, Buy-In, & Emerging Technology
Getting started in social media is a major hurdle in most organizations but once you dive in a whole new set of questions arise like, "How do I get my boss to buy into this?" or "Should we be considering an iPhone app?" These questions usually don't happen when you're trying to get a Facebook Page, but they become all too real when you've moved past the startup phase of social media. Topics in this session include:
- Developing a corporate social media policy
- Advanced social media monitoring and response
- How to sell the boss on social media
- Capturing and measuring social media ROI
- Geography based social networks (like FourSquare and Gowalla)
- Mobile Apps for all platforms (iPads, iPhones, Android phones)
- Strategic blogging with keywords
- Facebook landing pages
- Personalized social media reviews for all attendees
All Day Event:
Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, and Analytics: Getting The Most Out Of Your Online Strategy
This is an all day event that includes one of the half-day sessions above and my partners at NetEffect Services here in Nashville. The NetEffect team has great insight into SEO and amazing perspective on the world of web analytics. This event gives attendees a lot of actionable items to increase the value of three things they are probably doing to some degree in their online marketing efforts.
The SEO portion of the day will focus on search ranking principles and how to be found better by Google and other search engines. The analytics portion focuses on understanding what you're looking at beyond mere traffic to your website and how to set measurable goals using whatever web analytics tool you may already have.