Social Sales: Caveat Emptor

Posted on February 19, 2010 by marc meyer

Further, they made him feel part of an inhuman process. He felt rushed by the experience, felt like there was a lack of personalization and their representative didn’t really grasp the intricacies of SEO, social media or even their brand.

That paragraph comes from a post I read this morning from Adam Singer about digital marketing not scaling in which it struck a nerve that had deadened for me as of late. Which is, organizations have an incredible need for sales people that are the forward facing, people facing conduits of their organizations, to know the space first and the product second.

What’s my point here? Bottom line- Sales people need to know their shit. Especially in the social media space.

Not only that, you, the sales person, can’t be just talking it. You better be walking it as well. Why? If you want to me to use, test-drive or buy your social media solution regardless of what it is-I want to see that you are actively playing in the social media space. Why? because then and only then might you understand the people, the social business challenges facing companies, and the ever-changing landscape that is social computing.

Know this: If you try to pitch me, at the least, I’m going to do my homework on your company, but then I just may do my homework on you. If I can’t find out anything about you and your social presence, what does that tell me? It might mean that you may just be selling the solution. It’s a just another job to you, and you might not really understand the significance of relationships, people, interactions, engagement and conversations as they pertain to you, your company and your potential customers. Caveat Emptor.

10 social links, posts and sites you might have missed

Posted on February 18, 2010 by marc meyer

Each week I try to put out a post that highlights some of the sites, posts, and resources in the social media space that have been shared by others and in which I think are worthy of sharing with you. Some are great posts, others are sites or links that just resonate with me, and still others will make you better at what you do.

The first resource or link comes from Louis Gray who is one of the few people who shot us down when we asked him to host our weekly #socialmedia tweetchat. Actually he didn’t shoot us down, he didn’t even respond.

1) Nevertheless, this post The New 2010 Social Media Data Flow, With Buzz is about content creation on multiple platforms and data flow, who see it, where do they see it and how to avoid duplication. He makes some very valid points on how to proceed.

2) Not all the good stuff is on the left coast or right coast, sometimes it’s in Minnesota, from Zeus Jones. Check out this Fantastic Deck!

3) If I were you, I’d keep my eye on Google and their plays in the social space, they are looming larger and larger. What do you think Buzz is? Even more so, check this article about Google and Aardvark

4) We talk about the need for social media rules, guidelines and policies. Well, look no further than this resource of 117 social media policies

5) Another thing I talk about constantly is the fact that video is becoming more and more, a larger piece of the digital landscape. You need to understand the significance of that. With that being said, Companies and or sites like Fliqz, will become more valuable.

6) This is just a cool interactive site from Wrangler and you’ll see why as soon as you check it out

7) Suppose you were one of those folks who still doesn’t quite understand the whole Twitter Hashtag thing, well here’s a post that answers every question you may have ever had about them.

8. Wanna make a PDF out of a URL? Well now you can!

9) I absolutely love paging through this site from time to time, and you will too. Check out Overheard.it

10) and lastly, Crowdeye Twitter search has some potential, what do you think?

Do you have a site that I should look at and that I should share with everyone else? Let me know!

C4S5AZ9CTSGH

Social Media Marketing:Do you know enough to know where to begin?

Posted on February 11, 2010 by marc meyer

Good question right? What’s the simple answer? Maybe not. If you are a marketer thinking about social media marketing then there is a good chance, if you have not done anything yet, that its because you just don’t have enough information yet.

On Monday in Tampa, I attended and spoke at a conference titled Social Fresh, at that conference, during Maggie Fox’s keynote, she nonchalantly asked the audience how many of them were marketers. Surprisingly, more than 80% raised their hands.

Clearly, 2 things became evident: One, there is a need for more social media conferences down in the belly of the state of Florida(that in and of itself is worth another blog post) and two, marketers were indeed starved or looking for answers/solutions to the primary social media marketing puzzle/question. The How To. Implementation. Why haven’t they done it yet?

In this post I want to address those issues so that you can get started with social media marketing.

According to Equation research, one of the primary barriers for social media marketing adoption for brands or agencies is that they just don’t know enough about social media to know where to begin.

But why? Why is it taking this long for marketers, agencies, brands and businesses to learn about social media? For some of us, we have been talking about and writing about social media for almost 4 years. Is it fear of social media? Do we have so much on our plates that we don’t have time to check social media out?

Maybe.

Is it because your falling back on the excuse that you can’t measure social media? Please tell me that’s not the reason. If so, then please have a look at Olivier Blanchard‘s deck on the basics of social media ROI. Once you have rolled through it, I think and hope your fears on the ROI issue can be put to rest.

Another valid reason that may be preventing you from adopting social media may be budgetary. That can certainly affect any and all social media marketing efforts, as well as marketing efforts in general. If you got no money, then you go no money. However, I do want to point out that the barriers for entry into social media are relatively low. In fact your only costs when first starting out will be or could be design and labor.

So know this, getting into “it” is easy. In fact Chris Kieff suggests just listening for the first 6 months before you do anything else. It’s quick to set up and easy to do. I’m not adverse to that strategy, but think that maybe 2-3 months might be just as effective. But the point is, by listening for a bit, that gives you a feel for how things work in social networks and how brands, conversations, posts, links and search results all evolve because of social media.

Managing it takes a little bit more skill. My friend Jason Falls who writes a great blog on all things social media marketing related, has a post on managing social media marketing. Though it’s from 2008, it’s still relevant and valuable even today. There are some great tips contained in the post.

So you might say you don’t have enough time. Hey just like everything else in life, it’s all about time management and being efficient with your usage of time. Social media marketing is no different. I have often said that social media marketing can be an incredible time suck, but the way to work thru that, is to make sure you have a plan every day that applies to your social media marketing strategy and speaks to your social media tactics. Above all stick to it. This includes your personal social media interactions. You have to know how much you allow yourself each day to engage on your own social networks.

Another issue that prevents marketers from even starting and which might be completely out of their hands, is there could be legal constraints. I can tell you from first hand experience how difficult it can be sometimes when any copy or any site designs that you create have to then pass the litmus test of legal. It seemed that everything we did was always not with the customer in mind, but always under the auspices of, “I hope legal is cool with this…”

Beyond that, you may have corporate policies that may prevent your marketing department from engaging in social media, if so, it’s up to you to try and get corporate to look at the bigger picture of social media marketing and its effectiveness. Help them create a social media policy both internally and externally that allows you to use social media in your marketing efforts! Work with them, because there could be a very high likelihood that they have no clue of social media and thus they will err on the side of caution and completely lock down your efforts and attempts at social media marketing.

Lastly, I will say this. Given that search results can return articles and blog posts that rank high on the how to’s of social media and social media marketing, I think it’s important to trust one’s peers and their associated networks. What I’m saying is that if you have questions, go to Twitter and ask a trusted and valued resource. I rely on my network. Rely on yours and get started. it’s not too late.

14 Quick Tactics to Encourage Corporate Social Media Adoption

Posted on February 5, 2010 by marc meyer

This past Tuesday on our weekly Hashtag socialmedia tweetchat, we were honored to have one of the classiest people I’ve gotten to know, host our chat, BL Ochman. To say that it was a successful tweetchat is an understatement, but what really pushed the chat over the top was the last question in which she asked for quick tactics to encourage corporate social media adoption.

BL recounted the raw responses on her blog post, but I wanted to clean them up a little bit, make them into complete sentences, add some clarity and lastly point attendees from Social Fresh to this page.

What’s great about this list? What we have here is the full circle of social media; crowdsourcing, participation, sharing and invaluable input from peers, consultants and practitioners of what works-all for the benefit of quick internal corporate adoption.

Note: I’m also including hyperlinks to sites that add more value to how and what you will do with these tactics. Make sure you open them.

1) Create a Social Media case study of who is talking about your company both in good & bad ways. Show the benefits of why you need to join in.

2) Demonstrate for corporate executives the increase in visibility from search rankings that result from searchable presence on social media sites

3) On-going social media education! By providing weekly Twitter tips via email you can share best use, reports, case studies, trends, etc to show that it’s not intimidating.

4) Show corporate management stats on issues where competitors used social media & they did not. It’s a very clear way to demonstrate value.

5) Teach your execs and colleagues how to follow conferences and events and comment via hashtags

6) Encourage your employees to follow your company via social media tools and platforms like Twitter and retweet, post, etc. Be part of the conversation. stress to them that it also helps employee engagement.

7) Create a hashtag around your company, product, or industry and drive the conversations.

8. Map and find out where your target audience is participating in social media. Where are the conversations? Find them.

9) A first step for company enthusiasm could be to use social media to help build community within the company – HR bonding.

10) Show corporate executives how social media tools like wikis and internal communities, can help increase productivity. not all SM is external.

11) Show management what your competitors are doing in social media and those results.

12) Set up real time keyword/product/industry monitoring engines and show them the results.

13) To prove to executives of the value of social media, I like taking 12-18 month stock chart of competitors using Social media and showing them their results matched against it.

14) Building a business case for a new marketing initiative begins with research: customers, competitors, industry leaders> benchmarking

Even if you take one of these and put it to use, you are or will start to build a case for internal social media adoption. The key is showing them the results. And remember, it happens with or without your company. It’s your choice.

Engagement by proxy

Posted on February 3, 2010 by marc meyer

I was looking at the definition of proxy for some odd reason the other day and I was struck by the irony of the definition.

Last week, Todd Defren, who is taking a unique approach towards the social media space by discussing the ethical side of engagement, blogged about ghost tweeting and ghost blogging. Essentially asking his readers to determine whether doing either or not doing them, had any ethical merits.

But I have news for Todd and everyone else. Ghost blogging and ghost tweeting happen a lot. A lot more than people will care to admit. It happens because people that write and talk and engage for a living are a lot better at it than people who don’t do it for a living. And those that don’t, would rather leave it to those that do. Though I applaud him for taking the high ground on this issue, Todd knows it’s a lot more prevalent than most will admit. So do I.

Is there a solution, I don’t know. There might be, but it has to meet the criteria of the agency and the expectations of the client. Good luck with that.

Engagement by proxy.

This weeks #SocialMedia Tweetchat Topic: Fear Factor: Understanding the Value of Adding Social Media to the Mix

Posted on February 2, 2010 by marc meyer

FUD FUD! (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt) is typically used by sales and marketing types to position themselves against competitors. IBM used to be renown for using this tactic and now it’s being used in a different way. Executives are turning FUD around and using it on their own organizations with regards to the use of social media. While companies widely accept that social media is transforming the business landscape, executives are still reluctant to approve anything more than small tests or pilot programs.

This reluctance by executives is being translated by many to simply infer that they are scared. Looking at it from an executive point of view however might shed a different light on the use of social media. Companies have spent decades building out their networks of consumers, partners, suppliers, employees, and special interests. So why does management shudder whenever you begin to put a “social” in front of the network? Consider, today’s business models are developed with layers of hierarchy and managed very linearly. By this, I refer to the typical order of developing product, inserting the supply chain, managing distribution, creating point of sale campaigns and attracting consumers. There is a very linear process for managing corporate messaging, customer service, measuring consumer sentiment, channel partner alignment and so on. What social media does is dis-intermediates most linear processes and connects disparate networks in ways that enterprises have not yet created “management” solutions for. Like the classic management book implies, we have moved the proverbial manager’s cheese. So what does this mean to social media champions inside companies?

In order to make decisions, executives need clear objectives, relative impact on short term and long term business and data points to back it all up…not theory. Introducing a company’s employees to be social is one way to start (a good post by Rachael Happewill help identify ways to get started). This helps to build confidence, trust and develop skills for those tactical purposes. What is still missing though is the bigger issues surrounding change management and working procedurally in a non-linear environment. For instance, at its most basic, what happens when corporate messaging is spread by consumer reviews not Corp Comms department? What happens when consumers demand (or request) product features instead of market research? Take it a step further now and consider what might happen if your consumers could connect directly with your suppliers and eliminate your company’s role in assembly? Now it moves beyond ratty little conversationalists to a complete dis-intermediation of non-essential middlemen and your company is no longer relevant (think newspaper business).

In order for companies to consider adopting social across an enterprise, social media strategists need to move beyond campaigns and tactics and begin considering corporate lineages. A research study commissioned by Cisco contained keen observations for agencies and strategists to consider.

“Only one in seven of the companies that participated in the research noted a formal process associated with adopting consumer-based social networking tools for business purposes, indicating that the potential risks associated with these tools in the enterprise are either overlooked or not well understood.”

This is only one of the findings that was pointed out. The entire excerpt was reported by CNN Money here.

How do we ease executive’s minds and begin socially infusing companies? Our moderator this week is tasked with helping connect those dots. Helping us out this week, B.L. Ochman will provide her years of insight and success at convincing executives to get past dipping their toes in the water. Our topic and questions follow:

Topic: Fear Factor: Understanding the Value of Adding Social Media to the Mix

Q1) Why do executives still doubt social media?

Q2) Do companies have time for social media?

Q3) Are there quick tactics that can be used to build company enthusiasm around SMM?

The twitter based chat will take place on Tuesday 02/02/2010 at noon EST. To participate follow #sm45 on your favorite Twitter client or on our live site.

via hashtagsocialmedia.com

Posted via web from marcmeyer’s posterous

Social Media Marketing is Hard Work

Posted on January 29, 2010 by marc meyer

Before we get into this, I want you to know that I have had this type of situation happen to me more times than I can count. So I have to ask you, Do you have client meetings like this? Where you ask all or parts of the bulleted questions and conversations below?

OK, so lets talk about your business objectives. What are they?
Tell me what you want to do and how you are currently doing it.
Who are your customers?
What are your current marketing initiatives?
How are they working out for you?
Do you have a budget that you allocate for all of this?
What has been the return on those activities for you?
What has been the most successful for you?
What didn’t work and why?
What’s the competition like?
Do you have any help?
You worked with another agency? Why did they suck?
So you got nothing out of it?
Lets check out the website.
Let’s see how you are ranking? Who built this? Who manages it?
So you want to know about social media?
What do YOU know about social media?

And after you have done that…the client waits for you to finish and then asks…

Can you make us a Facebook page and get us ranked #1 on Google?

Then you blink.

So, would you take the gig?

Have you ever vetted a client? Do they have any idea how difficult social media marketing is? New clients want a piece of that social media pie, but as a consultant or agency it’s up to you make them take a step back, show them that it’s just another spoke on the marketing wheel and temper their expectations into realistic and achievable benchmarks with results. If you don’t do that, you will fail and your clients will be pissed.

So would you take the gig above? What would you say to this client?

You have 11 months to step up your social media game

Posted on January 27, 2010 by marc meyer

What are you looking for when you read the latest link bait blog title? I’m always looking for the new tool. I’m looking for what I haven’t found yet, We all are. It’s why new diet books keep popping up on book shelves. Because people keep buying them. Because what worked before just doesn’t seem to be doing it now. We’re all constantly looking for a new approach, a new way to do things. Social media is no exception. We just have a different name for it, it’s called social media obsolescence.

Here’s an example:

You see as a society we’re just not satisfied. This extends to the social networks that we use. Yes, we all are using Facebook, and they are truly the exception to the rule. They are the immovable force. But other sites just die on the vine but for no other reason than it has reached it’s point of critical mass. It’s now in decline for the simple reason that we are looking for, no craving more than what that site delivered to us flawlessly.

To that end, I often find myself pondering whether I could possibly write something that hasn’t been said already. What will satisfy this rabid audience of social media consumers looking for the brass ring or the uber answer? Well the answer is, every day there is another great batch of great posts from some really smart people that I’m pleased to know professionally. Each with a new twist, a different angle, a fresh thought. Which tells us that indeed we are in the nascent stages of this monolith that we call social media.

So what’s there left to do?

What is left is for you and even me, to take all of these thoughts and processes and put them to good use and into action. Then you, my dear readers must pay it forward. No more selfish consuming.

You need to become the next legion of social media foot soldiers. We still have so many people that are completely perplexed and yet those of you that have been playing in the sandbox now for say the last year, know so much more than 75% of the population. That’s you! Start sharing what you know and what you have read. Don’t keep it to yourself. Be a creator, as well as a conversationalist. Push the envelope in 2010, you have 11 months to get it done!

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