Suite 220-309 McDermot Ave. | Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3A 1T3 Phone: 204.943.3923 | Fax: 204.943.4197 | Toll Free: 1.866.882.3580 Recognition Brought To Life Web: www.plannedlegacy.com | Email: [email protected] Facebook Marketing, Twitter - Social Marketing Interview Mari Smith - MariSmith.com Relationship Marketing Specialist, Facebook, Twitter and Social Media Business Coach Free Facebook Tips About Mari: Dubbed the “Pied Piper of Facebook” by FastCompany.com, Mari Smith is a Relationship Marketing Special- ist and Social Media Business Coach. She helps businesses, entrepreneurs and nonprofits accelerate their profits using an integrated social marketing strategy, with particular focus on Facebook and Twitter. Mari is passionate about showing fellow professionals how to develop powerful profitable relationships using social media. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Would you prefer advanced live Facebook training from Mari via the Web? If so, make sure to check out: http://www.quickstartsocialmedia.com _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Interview by George Williams, Communications Specialist, Planned Legacy Planned Legacy: Mari, you’ve risen to the top of your profession as a Facebook/Twitter Relationship Marketing Specialist and have become very well known as one of the leading social marketing experts in the world. Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to be where you are today? Mari Smith: Well, I have always had a passion and an interest in the world of relationships, and in the early 2000s I studied and got certified as a relationship coach. At the time my field was predominantly concerned with personal relation- ships. I taught classes for singles and provided coaching for couples and singles and studied in depth the different types of assessments, particularly personality assessments. Two of my favorite personality assessments were the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Reiss Core Desires. At the same time, from the mid ‘90s onwards, I was also involved with computers and the Internet, building Web sites and e-mail lists, blogging, studying copywriting and writing information products on e-mail marketing and for the relationship world. So I had these two separate but related worlds. I followed these two parallel tracks for about 10 years and then in 2007 I was invited to be on the Alpha team of a Facebook application called Podclass, a place where you can teach and take courses. And that really just transformed my whole life. I literally went to Facebook.com, signed up for an account, and figured out rapidly because of my technical aptitude that this was going to be a really special platform. It had already started to head that way. I loved the white space of it and I Mari Smith Social Media Marketing Interview 1 © 2009 Planned Legacy Suite 220-309 McDermot Ave. | Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3A 1T3 Phone: 204.943.3923 | Fax: 204.943.4197 | Toll Free: 1.866.882.3580 Recognition Brought To Life Web: www.plannedlegacy.com | Email: [email protected] loved the ability to connect with so many people. And all of a sudden I became this overnight success 10 years in the making with my two worlds, my two passions and skills. My two major skill sets, relationships and Internet information marketing, basically merged and became one. I’ve never looked back. It was like the perfect culmination of all my years of training and I was suddenly completely immersed in the world of Facebook and social media. Planned Legacy: And all of a sudden you were in high demand. So it was like the perfect storm? Mari Smith: The perfect storm, yes, you said it George. And the other thing is my accent. A lot of people ask me about my accent and it is basically Scottish and Canadian. I was born in Canada and I grew up there in BC until I was 12 and then went to Scotland for 20 years. Both my parents are Scottish and I really consider myself Scottish more than any- thing. In 1999 I came to San Diego and that was a radical change. I had been an employee for almost all my career up until that time. Since then I have been self employed, so it was just a phenomenal journey. Sometimes I feel like I have lived several lives already. Planned Legacy: Can you give us an explanation of relationship marketing? Is it part of the social media market- ing phenomenon or are they one and the same? Can we group them together under a term such as social mar- keting? There seems to be a lot of terms being used, such as social media marketing, social marketing, relation- ship marketing, it gets a little confusing. Is it really just all about relationships? Mari Smith: It really is. Sometime ago, I think it was back in the ‘80s, a gentleman wrote a book called Relationship Sell- ing. His name is Jim Cathcart. He is actually right here in San Diego. I have met him and he’s a wonderful person. You’ve heard people talk about how relationships are the new currency and I am like, oh okay, there is some truth to that, but nonetheless, relationships as a form of currency if you will, have been around since the dawning of man. What’s new and different now is the medium. The online medium now allows us to rapidly increase our connection time, rapport, and what I call virtual rapport through Twitter and Facebook. You can build rapport to the degree now that the only thing left to do is to meet in person. When you meet people in person, all of a sudden it’s like you have been best friends for years. So it’s the media that has shifted, not really relation- ships. I like to establish myself as a relationship marketing specialist because different social media platforms could be here to- day and gone tomorrow. I don’t think platforms like Facebook and Twitter will be gone, but it’s possible some of the others might not be around. I’ve been a relationship marketing specialist for years regardless of the mediums. Now social media includes videos, blogs, social networks and a wide variety of online platforms we can utilize to socialize and do business. Planned Legacy: How do most people use Facebook and how does that compare to individuals or organizations that use Facebook for social marketing? Mari Smith: Most people will use a social network such as Facebook just to share photos with family and to stay con- nected with people that they went to school with a long time ago. The average number of friends that any member of Facebook has is between 100 and 125. Very few people are at the current 5000 maximum friend limit on Facebook. The social marketing aspect comes into effect when people utilize these online social platforms to market their products, services or fundraising initiatives. Businesses and marketers are using social media platforms to gain more visibility, more traffic, more subscribers, clients, media attention - to rise to the top and be seen as industry experts in whatever industry they’re in. The middleman has been taken out. There is a level playing field now. Anyone who wants to define themselves as a thought leader or otherwise in their industry, any industry, can do so through these social platforms. Planned Legacy: Why is it important for non-profit organizations to establish profiles on the social networks and become involved in social marketing? How valuable is this going to be for them in the future? Mari Smith Social Media Marketing Interview 2 © 2009 Planned Legacy Suite 220-309 McDermot Ave. | Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3A 1T3 Phone: 204.943.3923 | Fax: 204.943.4197 | Toll Free: 1.866.882.3580 Recognition Brought To Life Web: www.plannedlegacy.com | Email: [email protected] Mari Smith: Huge. This is a phenomenal time for nonprofits and we have seen more money raised for non-profit organi- zations through social media than ever before, one of the reasons being that it is really fascinating. I recently saw some- thing amazing happen regarding a cause. Different organizations have different causes for which they raise money but as an example: David Armano, VP of Experience Design with Critical Mass, knew a young woman who had been battered and abused as a wife. She had left her home and she had her young children, no money, and nowhere to go. He really wanted to help her raise some funds so she could get an apartment for her family. He added a widget called ChipIn to one of his blog posts (Please Help Us Help Daniela’s Family) and then posted messages about it on Twitter. He was hoping to raise $5,000 in a week. Within 24 hours they had something like $11,000 raised for this young woman! It just was mind blowing. I think it absolutely stunned, certainly, David and the young woman, but also everybody involved, myself included. Planned Legacy: What about the trust factor, with regards to social marketing, for nonprofits and other organiza- tions? Mari Smith: What we find with nonprofits and charities; the people that support them; and the social media sites, is that the knowing, liking and trusting factor is accelerated. We have more opportunities to build those knowing and trusting rela- tionships in such a way that people feel a sense of integrity and a compelling desire to be involved. I have probably spent more money on non-profit causes and charities in the last 12 months than I have in the last 10 years. If somebody is asking for $10, and I happen to be in the fortunate financial position of having some disposable income, I will purposely donate $100.