Interview with Mike D. Merrill, Social Media Club of Dallas President

Check out our interview with Social Media Club of Dallas President, Mike Merrill. For this interview, we leveraged the collaborative features found in Google Wave. You can follow the interview on the Wave embed, or see the transcript below.

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Full interview transcript:

LevelTen Interactive - Interview with Mike D. Merrill, President of the Social Media Club of Dallas, and the Chief Bacon Maker at Bacon Marketing

Colin Alsheimer: Mike - Just wanted to thank you for agreeing to do this interview with me. I know it's a bit unconventional, but we've seen interviews done through Twitter, and I thought this may be an interesting use of the technology.
So let's get started. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background. What's your history been like, and how has it led you to to be as involved in social marketing as you are today?

Mike Merrill: Thanks Colin for inviting me to leverage Google Wave in this format. First, I've been in technology all my career. I was an Operations Manager at Intel for 5 Years, then MBA at Michigan, then two software startups in Product Marketing and Segment sales and marketing at Dell. I have enjoyed marketing and the sales side of all my positions and relished the opportunity to build relationships that create mutual value.

I was an early power user of LinkedIn and leveraging for social networking. I have had my own domain since 1999 and used as part of my admissions process to B School. As a marketer, we were always looking for the opportunity to create a compelling value proposition that resonated with large audiences.

Social Media and content marketing enter the scene and level the playing field. Personally I started blogging early last year. Saw the opportunity to publish and drive SEO and personal branding. While many aren't fans of personal branding, I have personally seen the benefits so I'm a believer.

In February 2009, I had the pleasure of departing ways with NetApp as a sales executive when the Oil and Gas industry tanked. It was truly a blessing. I posted something on Linkedin to the affect of "I'm a free agent, who wants me" and my first social media consulting gig started.

My client was a large 4 year university and we designed a campaign to go after students. Not only did we double web traffic but we tripled revenue. I knew I was in the right place and have been consulting since.

On May 27th, I attended the Inbound Marketing Summit and met Chris Brogan and that was also the day I lobbied to take over the Social Media Club of Dallas and get it going again.

Colin: How do you think working for large corporations like Intel and Dell has influenced your marketing decisions and strategy today?

Mike: Each company has shaped me in unique ways. At Intel I gained an appreciation for the power of data to make decisions, an opportunity to develop my management and facilitation skills, and substantial empowerment to take risks and measure and modify strategy. The startups prior to Dell taught me the power of solutions marketing and how to "Cross the Chasm" with an ROI based selling model.

With Dell I was able to implement large scale marketing programs through customer and internal input and feedback. As I took my passion to change how we spoke to the Education market, I developed one of the highest direct response campaigns in the history of the public sector with the conception of Dell's Intelligent Classroom(tm) solution. This is still the go to market framework for all discussions with K12.

So why was the Dell experience relevant? I learned how to approach the market through primary research, customer validation, testing and then rewriting the messaging framework and testing again. I was fortunate I was able to convince many large IT vendors to pitch in MDF dollars to make all of it happen. So it was literally self-funded through my team's efforts.

As we say in social media, to get started you just need to listen and then engage to validate thoughts about needs in the market

Colin: It seems that one of your major interests, and something that you talk frequently about is personal branding. Can you tell us a little more about what personal branding is, and why you feel it's important?

Mike: If you look at Wikipedia Personal Branding is defined as:

"the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. The creation of an asset that pertains to a particular person or individual; this includes but is not limited to the appearance and knowledge contained within, leading to an indelible impression that is uniquely distinguishable."

Dan Schwabel, Author of Me 2.0 defines as "Personal branding is the process of how we market ourselves to others."

In this new reality, recruiters are searching LinkedIn instead of paying to post on Monster or HotJobs and reaching out to you directly. In fact, they often will Google your name. So in reality, your resume is the Google search results of your name. So if you have a common name, how do you increase the likelihood positive information will be found. Social Media is the easiest way to drive those results.

Several years ago if you would have Google'd "Mike D. Merrill" all that would have appeared in the results would be my website/blog and Linkedin Profile. Now, through blogging, twitter, commenting on other blogs, many more search results appear. All of this gives an impression of my values, my expertise, and my interests.

So in reality, by blogging, using twitter effectively, leveraging LinkedIn, youTube and flickr you can build a perception of your expertise. It helps lower the benefit of doubt, and in many cases brings outstanding opportunities to partner with others.

That's all good for someone looking for a job. However, I leverage these tools extensively in selling and leveraging my network for recommendations of potential clients, etc.

The trick is to not over promote yourself. I sometimes worry about this too as I'm very active on Twitter/Facebook and in many cases for the social aspect to connect and engage.

There are three ways to build this influence and personal brand:

• Share good content - relative to what you want to be known for
• Create good content - often the most challenging but I would argue the best way to build your brand
• Engage in conversations with others. Your Twitter stream should be predominantly @replies. You should comment on linkedin when someone changes jobs, You should comment on Facebook stories by adding value.

Colin: It's interesting that you bring up the idea of over promoting. I've often had the same concern. Though I believe in the value of personal branding and its ability to generate additional revenue for a company, I think it can often rub some companies the wrong way.

Where do you think the idea of personal branding belongs in the workplace? Do you think it can it be an effective means for generating additional revenue for your employer and not just recognition for yourself?

Mike: It's interesting you ask this as I feel very passionate about the role of employees in promoting where they work. I wrote a post about "Why Every Employee is a Salesperson". I think that every employee's actions affect the brand of the company whether they want to or not. So company's should teach their employees how to use this medium for both personal benefit and for the company. Dell now encourages many of it's employees to blog as they recognize each employee no matter where they are in the organization have influence.

In that same vein, I believe each employee has a choice here. For example, their personal blog is their content and their business. However, in general, folks who rant and rave all day about how much they hate their job online, aren't doing themselves any favors. No wants to be around those type of people.

In the end we are all human and we make mistakes and just want to live our lives. However, what is said online, via email or any other permanent medium can live forever. It's a scary thought. Like when you accidentally tweet something as an @reply instead of a DM.

Colin: Alright, let's shift directions for a minute. You're a big fan of mobile applications, and you wrote a great post about how businesses can best leverage Foursquare. What do you think is the potential of location based applications like Foursquare and Gowalla?

Mike: Big fan is saying it lightly. I'm truly obsessed with the potential and opportunity to truly tie brands to loyal fans, but also connect people locally which is really what social network is about. We network online, meet face to face and develop relationships. Or we meet in person, then really get to know each other online, collaborate and make the world a better place.

So my latest ideas are around how location-based apps bring people together around an event, a bar, a restaurant, and possibly a place of work even. This community approach could be used in creative ways.

So here's a thought. What if folks didn't know each other but were members of a linkedin group, facebook group, or Twitter list? What if when you checked in somewhere that was with say 100 yards, it notified you on foursquare or some new app. I'm a member of the Social Media Club of Dallas list. I check into say Zoe's Kitchen. Foursquare of course tells me that others are there. But what if Linkedin or Foursquare looked at the Linkedin group and sent me a push notification. Hey, Jessica Nunez is there and is part of your Facebook Fan Page. You should say hello.

Let's put aside the obvious privacy concerns and stalker issues for a second. Reality is in this world, people want to be found. What if you and I both worked for Dell and checked in at Gate D34 and were both members of the same LinkedIn Dell group. How cool would it be if I received a push notification with the person's name and picture.

Another way to aggregate Foursquare deals -- Based on a story on techcrunch, I created this Yahoo Pipes feed of all the Foursquare deals in Dallas, Addison, and Plano. Not enough businesses taking advantage of this yet. Check it out.

http://pipes.yahoo.com/foursquaredallas/5004bb614204741ced1a08a668e041e2

I had planned to write a blog post about that one.

One of the innovative offers I see out there is by Cafe Brazil in Dallas. http://foursquare.com/venue/45493

It basically rewards the mayor with 50% off the meal. So think of this another way, if I maintain the mayorship at my favorite restaurant, I eat 50% off for sharing with my social stream everytime I check in. Talk about top of mind with my network!

When it comes to deals, it would be ideal to get technical influencers in the community to have a decent incentive to trial your restaurant. So when you launch a restaurant or you are trying to get local bloggers to talk about their experience, offer them a great deal when they check in. You get an update to their social stream and the consumer gets a free meal or 50% off. Obviously you may need to set limits, but in our market, it's still new.

I just don't think Twitter and Facebook will be the app I use for checking in. I do think with Yelp's brand they could definitely bring some competition, but they don't have the gaming element.

Colin: Could you talk a little more about Yelp? What do you think about their entry into the location based app market? Is it a "me-too" move, or do they add value?

Mike: I guess for some it could be seen as a "me-too" move on their part. However, they have years of restaurant data by many users. Those users might not be in your social network, but powerful still. They probably also have accurate restaurant data since all if not most of the data entry is done in front of a PC with access to exact address, etc.

Second, they have a very established online brand with consumers. I believe I recall they have done TV ads as well. This will go a long way. Additionally, Yelphas 25 million web visitors a month. Substantially more than the 250,000 users Foursquare has. So what if 10% used the iphone app? That's a ton of people with many already using the mobile app.

What they lack is the gaming element that Foursquare and Gowalla have. But if I was a big Brand, I would seriously consider Yelp if they give me the ability to offer promotions.

Either way, Foursquare has all the buzz right now which will drive users and investment. Gowalla is still in the game. Their design is much better and if you have notice, I check into Gowalla and ping Facebook and Foursquare for Twitter. The graphical element of Gowalla hitting my Facebook stream is more pleasing to me

Colin: Do you think someone will buy Foursquare?

Mike: Any business generating buzz and growing as fast as they are attracts investors. So it's very possible, but given this is Dennis Crowley's second location type application and he sold it, he may want to wait for the ride on this one to get more capital out of it. There was a rumor that Gowalla was talking with Yahoo. That seems like a possibility right? Foursquare seems like a Google target personally.

Colin: Ok, last few questions. What's one of the most creative social campaigns you've seen recently?

Mike: Well I would have to go with the Tasti-D Loyalty Program which integrates Foursquare. It's hard to deny how powerful a promotion is when you tie in location.

Colin: Alright, final question. Zombies or Vampires?

Mike: Zombies, especially enjoyed Zombieland and 28 days.