Managing the Gray – Positive Advice That Everyone Can Use to Succeed

You want to know what the secret to social media success is? I give it on the show, but I’ll tell you here too. It is a simple one, that there is NO silver bullet for success. No big secret right? But, you’d be amazed at how many people and companies do think it will magically solve all their problems. Managing the Gray is here to tell you otherwise.

Today’s episode was inspired by an article in the latest Rolling Stone that talks about how Obama’s campaign was run and how he became President. One sentence in it set me off and got me thinking about the keys to running a successful campaign today.

I talk about this much more on show, but the basic outline for success in your marketing campaigns in my mind is:

1. Clearly define a measurable goal
2. Develop a strategy to reach that goal
3. Set up a team that is dedicated to the strategy and then empower them to work towards the goal. Trust them!
4. As setbacks arise, don’t let them take away your focus on the goal. Deal with them and move on.
5. Build a community and constantly feed them so they don’t burn out.
6. When you reach the goal celebrate and make sure the community takes part in the party.
7. Set a new goal and start over.

Thank you for the continued support and if you have a moment leave an iTunes review. There have been some new listeners around these parts lately and I love hearing from you. Drop me an e-mail anytime.

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As a blog partner, I’m happy to announce that voting has now begun in the Mashable Open Web Awards.

Voting begins now and goes until Sunday, November 30th at 11:59 pm PST. So be sure to take a moment and vote for your favorites in each category. When the winners are announced I’ll be sure to list them here as well

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I had no plans to record today until I saw someone twitter about this new video from Gary Vaynerchuk about yelling vs. whispering.It is his usual loud, energetic self and that is what I loved about it, but what made me want to record was his comment about “respecting your DNA” and that one little line kicked off today’s Managing the Gray .

Topics Discussed:

• Is it in a company’s DNA to embrace social media and emerging technologies?
• Why ROI is critical, but so is caring about your customers.
• My thoughts so far on Age of Conversation 2 and Tactical Transparency

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I got an outreach e-mail a few weeks back talking about how WiMax service was going to be coming to Boston. They contacted me because they knew I loved my Sprint Mobile Broadband and wanted to let me know about this “exciting news.”

I put that in quotes because I didn’t have a clue why this was important to me. Sure, I know enough to know that WiMax can mean faster service, but since I’m already a customer would this mean I’d have to pay more money? Did I need to buy a new modem for something that I would only be able to get in certain areas?

I asked this of the person who reached out to me and instead of writing back the answers they asked Scott Martin from XOHM to answer the questions for me on video. It was a little strange that they sent me a video file that I had to upload somewhere in order to blog post about it, but still they took the extra step to make it a bit more personal which I liked.

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I’m proud to be one of the partner blogs helping get the word about about Mashable’s 2nd Annual Open Web Awards. Last years winners included a variety of tools that I use including Twitter, Facebook and Last.FM.

Use the widget below to nominate your favorites.

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A friend of mine told me about The Novel Adventures this morning. It is a branded entertainment series being produced by CBS and sponsored by Saturn. Here is the first episode:

Watch CBS Videos Online

While the jury is still out on how they are going to leverage the social media space, they do have a Facebook Fan Page and a Twitter account set up. So they are taking steps in the right direction. But, will they actively work with the community and make this more then a simple video series? That is what I’m curious to find out.

I do love that Saturn is worked into the story line as the main characters husband runs a dealership and of course she drives one in the episode. They get the plug in for the new Hybrid (which I didn’t know about till I watched this and now it is on my personal radar) without making it an annoying product placement.

The playful and flirty nature of it is one that is also smart. Obviously they are going after the mom market with this series and keeping it a nice mix of types of moms as well.

I’m curious to see where it goes, but so far it got my attention and has me watching for more. Of course they seem to have forgotten any sort of subscribe feature which is a huge mistake on their part. Depending on me to remember to go back and see if there is a new episode is a major miss for them and I hope they fix it.

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