Tag: social media

When it comes to listing your social media contact info on your brochure, do you simply say ‘Find us on Facebook’? You’d better hope your customers are very patient while they comb through 500 million users.

We see Facebook and Twitter icons and logos all over the place now. They are very nearly as common place in advertising as phone numbers and email addresses, but what I’ve noticed is that a large number of companies stop short with JUST the logo of the Social Media site that they participate in. Unfortunately, this doesn’t do anything to help the user actually find you on those sites. Since the search functions on Social Media sites can pull up dozens of suggestions for any business name or search term, simply putting the logo of the site somewhere on your brochure can be counter-productive.

Businesses must realize that by doing this, they’re essentially saying “If you go on this site of 500 million users, I’m in there somewhere.” Not to mention the added level of complexity that exists if your business is a single location in a chain. What if there are 5 or 6 different stores from the same chain on Facebook? How easy is it for your users to identify which one is yours? What if corporate head office is listed there, too?

You can see the problem that this presents when you take the time and effort to connect with your customers, but you don’t go those last few steps to ensure that it’s really you that they find when they go looking. Luckily, there are a few simple things you can do to make yourself easier to connect with.

1 – Use a custom URL, and minimize it.

Most social networking sites, like Facebook and LinkedIn, will allow you to customize your URL so that you can shorten it and make it easier to fit on to brochures and business cards. For example, you can easily go from something like this page I found:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ford-Dealership/109108405778479

to a much cleaner example from another page:

http://www.facebook.com/ford.sales

Another tip to minimize the text is to simply remove the ‘http://’ from the URL, since we are all so used to seeing web addresses, it’s hardly a stretch to realize that ‘facebook.com/ford.sales’ should be typed in to the URL bar of a web browser.

To create a customized URL on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/username/

With Twitter, you can follow two ways of approaching this. You can either list your Twitter username: in my case @j_barrick, or your direct URL to your tweets: http://twitter.com/j_barrick. Again, you can use the simplistic: twitter.com/j_barrick and make the URL even cleaner and still make no mistake of which Twitter user is the real deal.

2 – Stick with only your top sites.

You may be tempted to list every single location online where your users can find you, but once you get past Facebook and Twitter, the widespread user base drops off dramatically. You might have a Flickr page, or Tumblr blog, or Myspace page, or several others from the myriad collection of social media sites, but that doesn’t mean you should stuff your materials full of every possible site. As a general rule of thumb, just list the few key sites that you’re most active on, or that you have the largest community. Again, this is all about making it easy on the reader.

3 – Don’t forget your main web address.

Unless you’ve got a VERY specific reason for doing this, don’t leave your regular www. web address off of any of your materials. I’ve seen several instances of companies running ads that are designed solely to drive traffic to their Facebook pages, but unless you’re running a completely dedicated campaign with Facebook traffic as your ultimate objective, this may not be the best course of action.

After all, your website should be the main hub of all your activity. Users should be able to go anywhere you are online from your website, so that would be where you’d list all the ‘other’ locations we talked about back in Tip #2, so don’t miss out on an opportunity to get people to visit your main online home. It can encourage them to check out more of you in other locations.

4 – Avoid ‘stylized’ logos. Stick with the instantly recognizable ones.

If you have picked up a magazine or newspaper in the last 12 months, then you know what the Twitter logo looks like. Same for Facebook. The simple, clean but easily identifiable ‘T’ and ‘F’ icon logos in the official colours are unquestionable about what they represent. But if you start to incorporate ‘fancier’ ones, (maybe they look like stamps, or buttons, or shiny metal), then you run a much greater risk of the general populace not recognizing them.

Example:

Use logos like this: not like this: in print materials.

The goal here is to ultimately drive people to see what you’re doing on these sites. If they can’t make that immediate association to the social media site brands that they are familiar with, they will be less likely to make that effort.

Bonus Tip: Business Cards

Your business card had better already have your company web address on it, but why not add your Facebook or Twitter URL as well? It’s simply one more way for your users to connect with you, which is the entire purpose of the business card to begin with! This info belongs on your cards, so the next time you print a batch, make that addition.

So overall, I think you can see that simply throwing an icon on your print materials doesn’t really accomplish anything other than ‘Yeah, we’re on Twitter’. If you really want to encourage people to check you out, then you need to make it as easy as possible. You would never put ‘Find us on the Web!‘ without listing your web address, so why do that with your Social Media?

End Note: There is another technology being introduced that intends to do a better job of integrating print and web, and that is the QR code. I haven’t touched on that in this article for two reasons: 1 – It’s a bit more advanced in terms of it’s usage and how to integrate it in to your business goals, and this article was intended as the ‘basics’ of putting SM contact info in to print, and 2 – it is still in the early adoption stage, and until every person has a smartphone, and everyone has taken the time to download a QR code reader app for their smartphone, QR codes will continue to be a very specialized way to reach a unique target market. In summary, not enough people know what they are or have the understanding and technology to utilize them effectively.

Jonathan on Google+

March 10, 2011

Twitter + TV = Better Entertainment

Jeff Probst and CBS get Twitter in a way that very few do.

Image linked from: http://mikesbloggityblog.com

I’m a big Survivor fan. Been watching since my wife (then girlfriend) convinced me to watch the finale of the Australia season (#2). Seen every episode of every season since then, and it never gets old.

That being said, this season (#21 if you’re keeping track) has added a completely new element to the experience of watching this show: Jeff Probst, the long-serving and exceptionally entertaining host of the show, live-Tweets with fans during the show.

For the past few episodes, he’s done this, and it’s added a new layer of insight in to what is the longest running ‘reality show’ in history. Imagine if you could sit on the couch right next to the director of your favourite movie AS you’re watching it. Yeah, it’s THAT cool.

For example, tonight I found out that Jeff gets to keep the torch-snuffers from each season, he accidentally smashed a vote urn during a lighting rehearsal, and that he thinks Ralph telling everyone about the hidden idol was a huge mistake. Now granted, if you’re not a fan you’re probably saying “So what?”. But if you ARE a fan, you know how interesting these little bits of info are. Now you’ll likely start thinking about other shows that you watch, and what little bits of info the host or actors might have that you might find really interesting. See how this adds a new level of entertainment to the whole ‘TV’ experience?

What Jeff Probst and CBS have done is recognize the potential for connecting with their already-loyal fans and making them feel like they’re very nearly part of the show. Which, of course, they are. Without fans a show doesn’t get past the first season. By having a host who clearly loves what he does, and allowing him to connect with the fans of the show while it airs, they’re allowing the ‘Survivor’ experience to be enhanced by having ‘behind-the-scenes’ comments sent out in real-time to everyone who wants to know more about the show. This kind of bonus material is usually reserved for ‘special edition’ DVD’s or two-hour post-season specials. Now you get it instantaneously, and for free.

What this clearly illustrates is the passion that both Jeff and CBS have for the show, which in turn will take already devoted fans and turn them in to raving evangelists. They recognize that by engaging with their fans they increase the amount of entertainment that they can jam in to a TV show’s time slot.

Businesses can learn something from this example. Sure, social media is great at improving your SEO, generating brand awareness, and all those other good things. But what social media is EXCEPTIONAL at is taking an already strong relationship with your biggest fans and making that relationship essentially indestructible. If you give your advocates and enthusiasts more than they expect, they will sing your praises even louder than they already do. Just something to think about.

March 4, 2011

4 Guaranteed Ways to Tragically Fail at Social Media Marketing

How several small bad decisions can lead to tremendous failure.

After reading it once already, I recently started skimming back through “How to Lose a Battle”, a collection of epic military failures gathered and edited by Bill Fawcett. I came to the chapter relating to the Battle of Agincourt, in which Henry V succeeded in producing one of the most lopsided victories in military history. After many weeks of exhaustive fighting had whittled his already relatively small force down to approx 17,000 soldiers and archers, Henry’s army still managed to decimate a well-rested, well-equipped force of 60,000+ French Knights. How did this happen? Well, the simple summary is that the French general did everything possible to lose the battle. There are many parallels that can be drawn from the details of the disaster and applied to marketing in social media, and I’ve pulled the 4 most prominent of those to explain how you can easily produce a tremendous failure in the world of social media marketing:

#1 – Wait until the time is wrong.
Henry’s forces landed on the shores of France 30,000 strong. They first laid siege to the port city of Harfleur, at which time the French Army could have simply marched up and sandwiched Henry’s forces between the French ground forces and the city, forcing the English to be attacked from two sides. But the French waited, and waited, and waited until every noble knight could be gathered in Paris. In short, they failed to recognize the urgency and left Harfleur to defend itself, without the support of the main French forces, and as a result the city soon fell to the English. After the city fell, Henry V left a small contingent in the city as a garrison, sent the sick and wounded back to England, and marched on with a force approx 20,000 strong, continuing his attacks against other French cities.

What to take away from that: When marketing in Social Media, don’t ignore small problems that can grow in to major problems. Any hint of customer dissatisfaction that goes unaddressed, any positive comment that goes unthanked, any question that goes unanswered simply gives your competition more opportunities to serve your customers in a better way. If something (ANYTHING) happens, be the first to have a presence in the discussion. Those seemingly ‘small’ issues can be the precursor to ‘large’ issues that are decidedly more difficult to manage later in their life cycle.

#2 – Say ‘no, thank you’ to valuable tools and resources.
While gathering their forces in Paris, a group of 6,000 militia crossbowmen offered their services to the French general. They were promptly told ‘No, thank you, we’ve got this under control.’, and were sent on their way. The French army viewed them as ‘low-rent’ soldiers, hardly worth using in a real war.

What to take away from that: Free help? One more tool in your toolbox that you can call on when necessary? Always take it. If you want to learn about your customers or competition, you don’t just use one channel, you use all of them. See what’s being said on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and any other place you can find info and participate in each of them. Don’t ignore any of your available options for learning.

#3 – Be ‘too good’ to use certain tools.
The traditional hierarchy of fighting forces was extremely ingrained in the social castes of the time. For example, it was generally accepted that a well-trained knight was a much more valuable and effective fighter than a peasant archer, even though that peasant archer could easily take out dozens of knights at a distance without breaking a sweat. That didn’t matter. What did matter was that archers were poor, lower class citizens, and knights were the elite. They decided the knights would be first in line, and the archers fell in behind them, essentially making it impossible for them to do their jobs. Oddly, archers were the most-feared part of the English army by the French, and yet were not viewed as a crucial part of the French assault force.

What to take away from that: Recognize the inherent advantages in each available tool, and use each of them to maximum effect. Twitter is different from Facebook is different from LinkedIn, etc. Trying to put all your emphasis on one channel and saying the others are just ‘not for you’ is a big mistake. Making assumptions about the options available to you without all the facts can be crippling. You can use each of them for different effects, each of which has an inherent value. Sometimes you don’t know just how far-reaching the effects can be until you try.

#4 – Disregard the basic environmental conditions.
The ground was wet on the battlefield that day. Previous engagements with English archers had led the French to learn how devastating they can be to mounted knights, due to the lack of protection on the horses. The French general made the decision to have his army dismount and attack on foot, slowing their approach considerably, and quickly turning the wet ground to a greasy slop under the weight of thousands of heavily armoured French soldiers.

What to take away from that: Be aware of the current environment. Paying attention to how people talk, what makes them move towards you and what makes them run away. What kinds of things are impacting their opinions? The influencing factors aren’t always directly linked to your company or your competitor, but can be something as intangible as market attitudes or external economic factors. Being aware of the basic market conditions is essential to communicating effectively on what matters to your audience in the here-and-now.

So, as you can see, by simply ignoring problems, ignoring available tools, and ignoring basic environmental conditions, you too can have a social media failure as symbolically tremendous as the French loss at Agincourt. Although, by doing the exact opposite of that, you might find yourself on the other side of the spectrum. Of course, hindsight allows us to easily criticize but the reality is that each of those individual effects may have not been so tragic on their own, but when you combine them one after the other, they create the perfect storm of failure. The trick is to prevent those individual effects from occurring, so that the major disasters simply can’t form. Easier said than done, but by staying vigilant and learning from others mistakes, I believe it’s achievable.

What are your thoughts? Have you heard of any social media or marketing experiences where one bad decision after another led to a failure of epic proportions?

February 28, 2011

The Tao of Twitter – Book Review

The book I wish I had before I wrote my first Tweet.

Twitter can be a really hard sell sometimes. “Who wants to hear what celebrities had for lunch?”, “You can’t use something like Twitter for business.”, or “How can you say anything worthwhile in 140 characters?” are all questions that we’ve heard before, and some of us are even guilty of asking them. But the reality is far from this perception. Twitter is indeed a viable platform for business communication, professional networking, customer service, marketing, news, and more. Every day more and more people are realizing the positives from participating on Twitter. They are preaching its awesomeness from all corners of the globe, and yet there are still droves of people who still think it’s stupid, pointless, just for kids, or full of celebrity gossip.

So how do you break that stereotype and show them the reality? Well, Mark W. Schaefer, author of the {grow} blog, took action and wrote The Tao of Twitter. A book whose sole purpose is to smash the negative stereotypes that talk of Twitter as a ‘waste of time’, and show readers that the personal and business benefits you can achieve on Twitter are real and are far-reaching.

Rather than start off with the typical lists of terminology and mechanics, Mark begins the book with a funny little anecdote about when he had his ‘a-ha!’ moment on Twitter. A moment that we all have when we start using it. The precise moment when you realize what the potential is. He then moves to an example of a tangible business success that could only have come to him as a result of Twitter. This approach allows the reader to understand the whole point of Twitter in the first 10 pages, and see what it’s capable of, instead of getting immediately bogged down with dry definitions and acronyms.

From there, Schaefer proceeds to explain the three ‘Tao’s that ensure you’re developing a strong community. In summary, the keys are to ensure you follow a group of people that are providing good content, that you return the favour and share good content to your followers, and that you commit to being genuinely helpful to the community. Through these three activities you will begin to realize the full benefits of Twitter.

Only then, once he’s shown that YES it does work for business, does Schaefer begin to explain some of the essential common terminology, the basic mechanics of how to Tweet properly, and some of the best do’s/don’ts for both beginners and veterans alike. Mark also outlines a simple regimen for ensuring that your entire day is not devoured by Twitter, but you are still an active participant within your community.

Finally, the book discusses how to put all the concepts together, as well as some important competitive advantages that will come from using Twitter, and how some of the current influence benchmarks work and are being used. While far from perfect, these influence metrics are still important to be aware of, and you certainly won’t be able to ignore them for long.

Overall, I was quite impressed by this first book by Mark W. Schaefer. It tackles a key problem that businesses face when adopting Social Media, and uses real examples of successes, both personal and professional. The Tao of Twitter should be viewed as the handbook to become one of those Twitter users that people will actually WANT to follow. It’s the kind of book that you’ll read more than once, lend to your friends and colleagues, and will probably fill with post-it notes, highlighter marks, and dog-eared pages.

*NOTE: This review was not solicited in any way. My copy of the Tao of Twitter was purchased.

February 18, 2011

Quality > Quantity – Being OK with Going Back to the Drawing Board

If you’re not happy with your content, why would anyone else be?

I recently read an article by Kiesha Easley on the Social Media Today site entitled “7 Ways to Lose 10 Blog Readers a Day”. In it she discusses a series of ‘what not to do’ tips that are so common on blogs today that they’ve become almost cliche.

While all 7 tips are solid, the last one really stood out for me as the tip that should be repeated again and again: Don’t Write Filler. This isn’t to say that everything you write needs to be so mind-blowing to your readers that it gets spread around to every corner of the Internet within an hour of publishing it, but it should always impress YOU.

This probably needs further clarification, since it’s a very grey area. For example, when I talk about not posting ‘filler’, I don’t mean:

Content that makes you uneasy because it might be controversial.
This usually means you’ve hit on something important.
Content that strays from your usual topic of choice.
There’s nothing wrong with expanding your horizons with new topics.
Content that discusses other people’s content.
This post is a prime example of inspiration coming directly from someone else’s content.
Content that you write quickly.
You must be inspired if your mind puts out the material faster than you can type.

What I mean by ‘filler’ is content that makes YOU, the creator, go ‘meh’ when you read it. If you sit down to write a piece simply because you need to post something, or just because it’s the hot topic of the week, chances are pretty good it’s not going to reflect your best work. You should write because you’re inspired, fired up, excited, angered, or just emotional about whatever the subject is.

At this point I must quote the always fascinating Henry Rollins: “If you’re going to love someone, LOVE ‘EM. If you’re going to hate someone, HATE ‘EM. But don’t be like ‘Oh, I don’t know how I feel about it.’ Well, have an opinion about something, otherwise don’t show up at my dinner table, because it’s going to be boring conversation.” Very potent thoughts from a guy who’s, in his words, “Never halfway about anything.”

Which brings me back to the topic of ‘filler’. I had an experience not that long ago writing a blog post. I started out on a Sunday afternoon, writing on a topic that I had read about earlier that day. Felt like an ok idea, but I really just felt like I had to post something that day because it had been a while since the last update. I ended up writing about 1000 words, went back, read the whole thing, and said to myself ‘There’s no way I’m posting this. It sucks.’. It just ended up being a jumble of thoughts without a coherent theme or ultimate point of contention.

I promptly deleted this ‘meh’ post and wen’t back to the drawing board on a completely new topic that I had a definite opinion on. Although it took me another couple of days to completely get it together, I felt far better about posting content that I was happy with than simply posting something for the sake of just adding a new entry.

By placing regular content posting as a higher priority than content quality you’re doing your readers a disservice by not showing up with your ‘A-game’ each and every time. I guarantee that if you polled each and every one of your readers, they’d rather wait a day or so and read something that YOU feel is your best work than a daily stream of mediocrity punctuated by moments of brilliance.

In spite of all the advice out there telling you that you need to post all the time lest you lose some of your ‘Klout’, I think we’d all agree that it’s ok to go back to the drawing board sometimes. The content that has the greatest power is the quality stuff, not the filler.

What do you think? Have you ever had any instances where you’ve started writing something and then completely junked it because it just wasn’t up to your standards?

February 4, 2011

Being the student & the teacher – Participation in Social Media.

Being involved in Social Media is to be a perpetual student who is also teaching the class.

I stumbled across an old proverb today: “By learning you will teach, by teaching you will learn.” I’ve come to realize that never has this been more evident than in the world of Social Media. We now find ourselves participating in one big, continuous learning environment, with access to the most brilliant minds in whatever field you happen to be in. It’s like living inside the best convention/event/conference that you’ve ever seen, 24/7/365. It’s never been easier to learn from others, and to have others learn from you.

Social Media is an incredible tool for exchanging information. It allows you to connect with others who operate from a similar mindset to your own, but a big part of the power is that it allows you to connect with those whose brains use a completely different operating manual. This is often where the most inspirational ideas come from. I may not like the same music or foods as you, but that has nothing to do with your ability to generate an idea that blows my mind. Connecting with people of all different mindsets allows you to grab the best of all perspectives, and use it to form a completely new approach that you would never have been able to obtain before.

But lets also think about your ability to teach others using Social Media. Just because you don’t have 10,000 followers doesn’t mean that you’re not capable of providing valuable information to others. Think about it in a simple example like this: the internet is a huge place, with millions and millions of new pieces of content added daily. There’s no way that one person, or even a group of people, can find all the gold that exists. Everyone has to do their part to find the hidden nuggets of awesome that can be shared with the community. If you find even one piece of gold that may have been missed otherwise, then you’ve done your part. Share the wealth of knowledge that you find, and you’ve become both the teacher and the student.

Even the ‘learned masters’ in the Social Media world are constantly searching out new material and information from the community. The reason they are so successful in these new channels is not because they are the single brilliant mind that everyone yearns to become, but because they are constantly learning from others. What works, what doesn’t work. They take the info, digest it, process it, tweak it, apply it, and test it. Repeat. This is how the smart get smarter. No one person has all the answers, but when we all come together, the collective does.

This is where the learning power of Social Media lies. The ability to create, the ability to discover, and the ability to share. Only by doing all three are you able to maximize your learning through these communities. As a result, we all become better. We all become more knowledgeable, more effective, and more successful.

January 25, 2011

Top 5 Tips to Get in to the Twitter Pool Without Drowning

Know someone who should be on Twitter, but is a bit apprehensive? Here’s 5 tips to help them get their feet wet.

Twitter is intimidating for new users. Back in June 2010 (which is eons in the past, for Twitter), there were an estimated 65 million tweets being posted per day. PER DAY!?! I don’t care who you are or where you’re from, that’s an impressive figure, and it’s even totally out of date. How many daily tweets are there now? No idea, but it’s surely many more than that.

So, now that everyone is saying that you have to be on Twitter, where do you start? How do you step in to a community of 90 million users and not get completely swept away? Well, there’s two strategies, just like swimmers entering an ice-cold lake: The brave just dive in and deal with the shock, the timid move in slowly and adjust a little bit at a time. Here’s a fun fact: Twitter retention is about 40%, with most users who quit leaving within the first month. Why? Hard to know, but it may have something to do with the lack of any standard way of being ‘introduced’ to Twitter. Everyone has their own idea of what users should do first, and it never works the same for everyone.

But I believe there are some basic tactics that new users can follow, regardless of their reasons for joining. I’ve decided to compile what I believe to be the top few tactics that might be helpful to those timid Twitter swimmers who know they need to be there, and want to see what’s happening, but aren’t quite ready to plunge headlong in to the unknown. Here we go:

1 – Choose one interest to start with.

This might seem simple, but it can be incredibly daunting. There are Twitter communities out there for any topic you can imagine, and I mean ANY topic. Want to connect with other people who use Twitter for their small-business? You can find them. Want to connect with other people who dye their cats fur? You can find them, too. It’s a good idea to not spread out too fast all at once, since you will quickly become overwhelmed with ‘stuff’ to sort through. Choose one main focus to start, and see what’s there. You can always add other interests once you get the hang of things.

2 – Identify a handful of key influencers.

For every topic, there are those Twitter users who it seems like EVERYONE follows. A Twitter user in Marketing? They probably follow @mitchjoel or @unmarketing. A pop music enthusiast? They probably follow @coldplay or @ladygaga. Choose a few really popular users that fit your topic of interest, follow them and see what they’re posting. Not only will you likely find their posts incredibly interesting, but it will help get you adjusted to the way tweets are written, and how other people interact on Twitter.

3 – Find a few users that make you laugh.

Have a favourite comedian? Or perhaps an actor/actress that you can’t get enough of? Follow them. It will give your Twitter feed a ‘break’ from the monotony of one topic on a regular basis, and it will help you see Twitter not just as informative, but entertaining as well.

4 – Retweeting to show that you exist.

Posting a fresh and original tweet is great, and I encourage you to do it whenever the mood strikes you, but if you have no followers, you quickly feel like sending out your own tweets is pointless. (Note: Yes, I know that it’s not pointless, but when you have no one reading them, it sure FEELS like that) Retweeting stuff that you find interesting allows those tweets to appear in searches that other people conduct for the original tweeter, as well as any # hashtags that appear in the tweet. This is a good way to introduce yourself as someone on Twitter who has an interest in those topics, and wants to share that information with the rest of the community. It’s a good way to earn your first few followers.

5 – Answering questions & giving feedback.

Have an opinion on something someone just tweeted? Don’t hesitate to let them know. I’ve noticed that the Twitter community is not only very receptive to feedback, but we tend to crave it. I love to know what people think of my content, especially if they have something new to add to the conversation. It helps everyone see different perspectives, and gets your own creative juices flowing. A single comment can be the spark that generates a whole new series of tweets.

Well, there you have it. Hopefully those tips help make Twitter seem a bit less scary. It’s always comforting to have some kind of plan in place when you start something new, and social media is no different. I believe that following these tips for your first steps in to the Twitter universe will get you in the groove quickly and effectively. It’s always good to keep in mind that Twitter is not a competition, nor is it a race. Don’t focus on how many followers you have, or how many people have retweeted you. What’s really important is if you’re getting some value out of your experience. As long as you feel like it’s beneficial for you, then you’re doing it right.

Also, if some of the words in my post seem like gibberish to you heres a collection of Twitter Definitions and Terminology:
http://hellboundbloggers.com/2009/04/23/twitter-definitions-for-newbies/

I’d love to hear your opinions on these tips, or if you have any of your own that have worked for you, let’s hear from you! Or maybe you’ve got a great ‘what not to do’ example that you can share, let’s hear those too!

January 23, 2011

Changing Your Tone – Talking in Social Media

It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it.

For many, many years, the marketing and advertising teams out in the world had a very distinctive way of ‘talking’ in the materials they produced. This way of talking even has a name: “Ad-speak”. I’m sure that you don’t even need me to describe it to you, but it was always loaded with punchy, trendy words, phrases like ‘never before seen!’ and ‘for a limited time!’, and gave you the impression that the people who wrote it thought they were doing you a favour by telling you how lucky you were to now know about this amazing product.

The thing is, every product had that kind of pitch. Sure, some were more eloquently written than others, but ultimately their goal was to convince you that whatever it was that you were looking at was a better choice than all the others. Here’s an example: Do you know how many different ads for pickup trucks claim that they have the ‘most horsepower’, ‘most torque’, ‘biggest towing capacity’? All of them. And for some reason, they all seem to have won a ‘Truck of the Year’ award. Not sure how that works, but maybe ‘Truck of the Year’ awards are like the ‘participant’ ribbons you used to get at your public school science fairs. Everybody gets one just for showing up.

But does this really make a difference anymore? We see study after study being done that reveals the lessening effects of print and television advertising in swaying opinions. People just don’t give those types of messages any kind of credibility anymore, because they all sound exactly the same. So how do you turn off decades of habitual ‘ad-speak’ and switch it to something that doesn’t make people tune out? Start working in Social Media, that’s how.

Take a look at some of the companies that are successful in Social Media, and look at the way they write their content. When they tweet, when they update on Facebook, or post on their blog. How does it sound? Does it read like an ad? Or does it read like someone talking to you in a casual setting? I’d be willing to wager something marginally valuable that they aren’t shouting slogans at you, are they?

Social Media is all about starting conversations that go both ways. An ad on TV is one-way communication. An ad in a magazine is one-way communication. But a piece of content put out in Social Media is ∞-way communication. Anyone can post on your Facebook wall, anyone can reply, and anyone can reply to anyone’s reply. A single tweet can spread to hundreds of thousands of people, if it’s something that your followers care about. A blog post can generate insightful comments and valuable feedback, if people care about what you wrote.

The key is to keep your readers/followers comfortable. Keep them at ease when they’re connecting with you. Make them feel like you’re not just shouting at them, but actually talking as if they were sitting next to you in a coffee shop, or over a beer at the end of a long day.

Here’s two ways of talking to your audience about an upcoming trade show. You tell me which one you think would get people replying to you:

1) “Come on down to the Trade Show! Product X is now on sale!”

2) “Hey, will anyone be heading down to the Trade Show? What kinds of things will you be looking for?”

Post #1 is entirely one-way. It doesn’t elicit any kind of response from your community. Someone reads that, and they think “Ok, that’s nice.”. Now, post #2 on the other hand is flat-out asking your community for input. In one short post, you’ve asked two different questions that they can answer, and get them talking. If they’re going to the show, they can see that others might be, too. If they’re not going, maybe you can ask why and get some info from them on why not. Maybe they’ll tell you what they’re looking for. Seeing what other people are looking for might encourage them to check out stuff they might not otherwise know about. If your special price on Product X isn’t something they’re even interested in, maybe you adjust your promotion to be more in tune with what people are going to see. Both posts let people know where you are going to be, but only one lets them know that you care what they think about it, and want to hear it.

That’s really the key point here: Let them know that you really care what they think. Asking someone for their opinion makes them feel important. It lets them know that they have knowledge that you need. It changes their relationship with you from ‘customer’ to ‘partner’. They are important to your success, and you need to let them know that. How do you do this? By involving them in the conversation.

I feel I must quote Scott Stratten, @unmarketing, as he makes an excellent observation in his book:

“Why do we market to people the way we hate to be marketed to?”

Makes you say ‘Yeah, no kidding.”, and it’s a message that is ignored all too often. How do we like to be spoken to? Like a real person. Like the other party cares about what we have to say, and isn’t just preaching at us from the pulpit. If we can all keep this in mind, not only will our customers become our partners, but they will provide the ∞-way communication that we all need to be better at everything we do. You just need to start by changing your tone.

Do you have examples of companies that have changed their tone for Social Media? Let’s hear about your own success in getting people talking!

January 17, 2011

The Frustration of Having to ‘Sell’ Social Media

I’m currently reading “UnMarketing”, the brilliant book written by Scott Stratten (@unmarketing). To condense the focus of the book in to a few short words would be a fools errand. Nevertheless, I’ll try: I’d summarize it as “a combination of a triple-espresso, a cold shower, a smack upside the head, and a motivational speaker for businesses trying to understand Social Media”. What it does, and does well, is help you to realize that Social Media isn’t just a fad or a buzzword, but a fundamental shift in the way companies talk to their communities. It’s no longer a one-way, or even two-way communication between you and your customer. Now, it’s ∞-way communication. Anyone can talk to anyone, and everyone is talking to everyone. This turns the entire advertising world upside down, and means that you can’t talk to your customers in the same language of ‘ad-speak’ that was the default dialect of the marketing world for so very, very long. Too long. It just doesn’t work anymore, and everyone is tired of it.

While there are many out in the world who are fighting it and can’t seem to adapt to this shift, there are also many who have embraced this new method of communication as a welcome change, myself included. Fortunately I also find myself in an environment that consists of individuals who also are looking towards the future, and strive for growth. We’ve recognized that this means in order to be successful, companies need to abandon the old ‘BS’ ways of trying to push themselves and rely on the merits of their product/service itself, as well as the quality of the knowledge contained in their organization in order to pull people towards them. If you sell a good product, and know what you’re talking about, you’ve already got the basis for a successful Social Media presence. If you’re ‘faking it’, you’re already doomed before you begin, BUT if you’re legitimately knowledgeable, have a quality product, and care about your community, then customers will be drawn to you naturally. There’s no need to force yourself on anyone in these new channels. In fact, forcing yourself on your desired audience can (and often will) have the exact opposite result and drive them away. The quality of your content is what will attract people to you.

You might be thinking to yourself “Wow, what a breath of fresh air for businesses!”, and if you are then you can count yourself among those like myself and Stratten. However, you’ll also find yourself intensely frustrated by the need to sell Social Media to those who either don’t understand this shift and can’t adapt to it, or who simply haven’t looked closely enough at it yet to realize what’s really happening. Stratten summarizes this frustration in this one magnificent passage from his book:

“The thing that really gets me riled up about people questioning the ROI of Social Media is: If I offered you a tool 10 years ago that allowed you to listen in and respond to the casual conversations of your potential, current, and past customers, you would have paid me $20,000 a month for this 8th wonder of the world. But now, that it’s here, and it’s free, you question its value?”

Read that several times. Then read it again. Then read it aloud to everyone around you. It’s astounding, isn’t it? And it’s the root of why small-medium businesses, start-ups, and entrepreneurs are proving to be so much more effective at Social Media than large corporations. SMB’s are conditioned to seek out low-cost alternatives to gaining exposure, generating brand awareness, and creating buzz about themselves. They don’t have the resources to invest in the types of million-dollar ad campaigns that big corporations just love to use. But the thing is, because of Social Media, even big companies no longer NEED to spend ridiculous dollars on traditional marketing efforts. They can benefit just as much from Social Media as the SMB’s if they simply wake up and realize what this whole Social Media thing is really all about. Just because it doesn’t cost anything, doesn’t mean it’s worthless. Quite the contrary, in this case. It doesn’t cost anything; but it is priceless.

But we always come back around to the need to justify Social Media efforts. We still need to ‘sell’ people on it. Why? Aren’t the benefits pretty clear? Isn’t the activity there measurable? Doesn’t it give you a clear correlation between investment (time) and return (information/communication/feedback) that you can’t get through ‘traditional’ marketing?

How do you really compare a successful social media activity versus a successful advertising activity? Well, on the one hand, you spend hours of time developing a creative ad, cough up $5000 for space in an issue of a magazine, and then what? How do you measure if it worked? Well, first you wait. Then after a while you try desperately to correlate any increase in sales to the timing of the ad issue, hoping that the increase isn’t due to some other unforeseen factor, and then you say ‘Well, we think it worked’.

On the other hand, you have Social Media. You spend hours writing a blog post, and then what? You see if it was viewed, how much time they spent, did they share it, where did they share it, did the share bring others to your post, did they comment, was it a positive or negative comment, did they include a link to some other material, and on, and on, and on. Seems to me like the ‘return’ you get from Social Media efforts is more measurable than anything that traditional media can offer. Not only that, but it can give you a very clear idea as to what you should do next. Social Media is self-propagating like that. The more you contribute, the greater the amount of new ideas you can obtain for what you should do next.

If you ever need to ‘sell’ Social Media to someone, why don’t you ask them to ‘sell’ you on traditional media first, just to compare who’s got more good things to say. I have the distinct feeling that they’ll run out of words long before you do.

What do you think? Let’s hear your stories about your frustrations and instances where you’ve needed to ‘sell’ Social Media, and how you went about it!

January 14, 2011

Social Media in B2B – Moving beyond just your customers

It’s no secret that most of the conversations happening about Social Media and how it affects businesses speak primarily to the B2C relationship between business-and-customer. However, when you get in to the world of B2B Social Media discussions, there’s one area that I don’t believe has received much attention, and that’s the effects of Social Media on the relationships between a business and it’s suppliers, and how those relationships can impact the customers of that business.

There can be significant ramifications for your company and the relationships you have with your customers as a result of the actions of your suppliers. For example, if one of your suppliers is implicated in some type of scandal or cover-up, how does it look on you that you’ve done business with them? Or if they do something exceptionally good and garner a lot of attention for themselves, how can you as their customer benefit from that as well?

There’s a great deal of give-and-take that goes on between businesses and suppliers already, so exchanging Social Capital should be a natural progression in those relationships. Let’s break it down according to some of the effects that can occur as a result of Social Media cooperation between businesses and suppliers:

1 – Greater reach & community growth

If you’ve got a great relationship with one of your suppliers, why not share that positive relationship with your community? And why not encourage your supplier to do the same? People always like to hear about successful business partnerships, so why not partner even more effectively and share your audiences? Sharing great news about either one of your businesses shows that there’s good stuff happening for your industry, and this positivity can have far-reaching effects for both of your brands. People like to associate with winners, even if it’s a second-tier connection.

2 – Improved damage control in times of crisis

If something goes terribly wrong for either the business or the supplier, you can be there for each other to help smooth things over during tough times. In the event that your facing a problem as a result of a purchased component, or if your supplier is facing a problem with a component they supplied, you can both discuss the issue openly and candidly within your communities, and publicly between the two of you to make sure that “Yes, we are aware, and Yes, we are working together to fix it.” Of course, this is provided that the the ‘damage’ in question isn’t so horrible that it completely poisons the relationship. But for your average, everyday screw-up, having another company vouch for your commitment to make things right can go a long way to improving both of your positions in the short-term and in the long run.

3 – Price becomes less of an issue for everyone

When you’ve got a great relationship with a well-known supplier, and people are aware that whatever you’re buying from them is the ‘best’ component you can get, then a slightly higher cost becomes less of a factor when they make their purchase decision. It’s one more way to differentiate yourself and your products from your competitors. The more unique you are, the less likely you are to be viewed as a commodity, and using quality parts and services from reliable, well-known suppliers is just one more way to accomplish this.

4 – More power at the negotiating table

Looking at those previous effects of utilizing Social Media to boost your relationships with your suppliers, you can easily see how by taking these steps your business becomes even more valuable to your suppliers, and much more difficult for them to let you go to one of their competitors. This can give you an improved position at the negotiating table when it comes time to determine pricing, payment terms, and other factors if you are committed to showcasing the relationship you have with your premium suppliers. By partnering more effectively with your suppliers, you can add value to your offer above and beyond ‘what you’re willing to pay’.

This is really just a short list, and as Social Media becomes more and more ingrained in to the B2B culture, I’m sure that other benefits and effects will come to light that we aren’t currently aware of. Ultimately, what you need to realize is that Social Media doesn’t just relate strictly with your customers. There are many other areas where your efforts in these new communication channels will have an impact, and if done properly will strengthen your business in ways you never could have anticipated.

What other potential impacts do you see that could result from taking a more ‘complete’ approach to Social Media in the B2B world? What about detriments or cautionary items that should be considered? Let’s hear what you’ve got to say!