With more than 41 million Facebook fans and over 537 million Google results, it is no secret I am not the only one mildly obsessed with Lady Gaga. And while admit that I enjoy her as an entertainer, I am equally as fascinated with how she has developed her brand in a few short years.

In less than 4 years, Lady Gaga has grown her net worth to $110 Million. She is responsible for shaking up an industry that has been struggling to adapt to technological advances since 2005 when digital downloads gained mainstream acceptance and labels struggled to combat piracy. Her strategy started with taking advantage of the power of social media to connect with her target audience through YouTube, Facebook and Twitter and has grown to include partnerships with MAC Cosmetics, Polaroid and Google Chrome.

Gaga's "Born This Way" album cover. 2011 Interscope Records.

Businesses can learn a lot about social media from the Queen of Pop. Lady Gaga uses emotion, engagement and interactivity to connect with her audience (little monsters) and in exchange builds trust. Her little monsters trust her, her brands and her partnerships – all contributing to her net worth.

Here are 3 quick practices that can help your company be more successful when using social media to engage with prospects and customers.

1. Cultivate your Audience by making sure your content is relevant.
2. Embrace Technology and use it to communicate and interact with your audience.
3. Keep it Simple and provide a clear path for your audience.

Social media has been key to the success of Lady Gaga and can help grow your business too! How is your business using social media to interact with clients and prospects? If you need help executing a social media plan, contact @canyoncomm – we’d love to help!

The Social Media Monthly is the first printed publication to exclusively cover social media. Published by The Cool Blue Company, the magazine is available nationally from Barnes and Noble and internationally in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Germany Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark.

The first issue of the magazine is out and you can download the digital version for $2.99 or pick up the printed copy for $4.99. A year’s subscription runs $29.99 and comes with digital access.

The debut issue’s cover was designed by Yiying Lu, the artist responsible for the infamous Fail Whale on Twitter. The magazine features articles by social media heavyweights such as Simon Mainwaring, Beverly Macy and Shelly Kramer. Some of the articles you can expect to read in the first issue are Shifting Social Media into Social Transformation, Data and Context — The Road to Good Decisions and Connected Engagement is the Key to Social Media Marketing.

At a time when print publications are shrinking, it seems counter-intuitive to have a social media print magazine. In fact, it seems to go against everything Social Media stands for – the social aspect. Social Media connects people, brings them together cross-platform, and allows them to connect by self-selecting where (and when) they want to be heard. A magazine does the opposite – it’s a very isolating, a one-on-none experience. But it does offer information, which hopefully you can share within your social network.

But what I can’t argue is that the magazine comes at a time when social media has a tremendous impact on the modern business world and shows no signs of slowing in the near future. I am curious to see, how will the magazine fare? Is this the publishing world’s next attempt to remain current, or a legitimate effort to build and communicate a whole new social media audience?

Do you think the magazine will be successful? Are you planning on purchasing the first issue?

Remember the good old days of advertising, when what we now call “traditional forms of media” (print ads, brochures, etc.) were the only forums for communicating marketing messages to consumers, B2B and B2C alike? What ever happened to those days?

One word – technology.

Traditional mediums are still very relevant today as they allow marketers to engage their audiences in creative way. However, they are limited in their ability to provide consumers with the opportunity to act soon enough. Unfortunately, the time between when a customer views an ad and when he or she decides to act on it causes a high percent of disengagement, leading to less actionable responses.

Scan or click the QR code to see some really cool QR code designs!

A majority of this problem was addressed when the internet came along and with it, banner ads and text ads (here’s looking at you, Google Adwords).  Online messaging allows users to click through to the exact location where they can act immediately on an ad’s message. And because there are endless amounts of data and analytics available to marketers, the messages can be extremely targeted to specific segments, and even individuals. People are self-selecting where they go to get their information, and now marketers can too.

So where does that leave some of the more traditional B2B marketing methods of print ads, brochures, even trade show booths?  Well, with the somewhat recent rise of mobile technology, a new way of bridging the gap between print and online mediums has emerged in the form of Quick Response codes (or QR codes).

QR codes can be incorporated into any kind of advertising medium and address two very important flaws that are visible in the more traditional approaches.  First, they have the ability to place a consumer directly on a site for them to take a final action without making them sift through other clutter first.

Second, and more importantly, QR codes allow consumers the chance to take action at the exact moment that your message has piqued their interest.  Using mobile devices, consumers can snap a picture of a QR code and be allowed to take action before talking themselves out of it, whether that action is purchasing a product or service, or providing information.

This is a vital part of the marketing process that is non-existent with more traditional approaches.

Has your firm started using QR codes in your marketing communications? Do you think it is relevant to your business? Where’s the most interesting place you’ve seen a QR code?

When I was a lowly college freshman sitting in my Marketing 101 class, I never thought I would find myself waxing poetic about sprinkler head differences, LED lighting or custom-blended fertilizers years later.

That being said, working in B2B marketing, and specifically green industry marketing, has been the most fun challenge I’ve ever had. In B2B marketing, you have to reach decision-makers in many ways to make the most impact. Because B2B purchasing decisions typically come down to reaching the right decision-makers with the right message at the right time, communicating using multiple channels is a must.

This is especially important because the way business people access information continues to change and evolve. Therefore, you must think smarter about how to apply traditional tactics with cutting-edge marketing communications vehicles—sometimes simultaneously.

Case in point – let me introduce you to the Horizon Distributors Landscape Maintenance Guide…

The Horizon Maintenance Guide

Horizon tasked Canyon with creating this printed piece because they needed to find a way to give their customers – Landscape Contractors – a way to quickly reference and troubleshoot a slew of issues they might find in the field while on the job. Having this quick reference guide allows their customers to solve problems quicker, which saves time and makes them more profitable while keeping their projects on-budget.

And because Horizon Distributors wanted to deliver this same information in many different ways to keep up with technological innovations, the Landscape Maintenance Guide smartphone app was born.

Canyon worked closely with Horizon to adapt this piece into one that could be viewed on a variety of mobile devices because their persona research determined their typical customers always carry one on the job site. So now, this valuable information that will allow Horizon customers and prospects to reference information and troubleshoot issues in the field, right from their smartphone!

You would think that taking a print piece and converting it to an app would be a simple process. Not so.

The App shown on iPad and iPhone

In fact, for as much time we spent creating the app, we spent equal time strategically troubleshooting the challenges that arose by taking a print piece and making it work as a smartphone application.

When working to create an app you have to:

1. Make sure it’s user-friendly;
2. Valuable to the audience; and
   
3. Accessible from a variety of different mobile devices (including iPhones, Android devices, Blackberries and various tablet formats).

In the end, the app turned out to be a homerun for our client. Their customers and prospects who download the app will now have access to specific information that will help them do their jobs better while in the field. In addition, we built in the capability to make enhancements and updates on the fly to encourage users to keep checking back for new content and access the mobile app again and again.

Have you contemplated building a smartphone app for your B2B organization? What other mobile marketing strategies have you used to get the word out about your business? Do you look at mobile as a growing part of your marketing mix?