Orange Envelopes | Small Business Optimized Marketing > By Design

Perhaps the single biggest change that companies have had to adjust to when implementing a social media strategy is the necessity to listen to online conversations, comments and rants that mention their company by name.

Mirroring the explosive growth of Twitter and Facebook has been the excitement  of companies eager to exploit what they see as another marketing platform able to reach targeted individuals at virtually no cost. Company after company set up Twitter identities and Facebook Fan Pages that immediately began broadcasting endless pitches for their products and services.

These clumsy and ineffectual efforts were summarily followed by claims that these social media platforms were a waste of time for companies trying to build their business and attract customers. But what these companies failed to recognize was that most consumers simply aren’t looking to engage most companies online. We’re already overwhelmed with marketing messages and have no desire to open another advertising pipeline right to our desktop.

That doesn’t mean that social media participants won’t interact with companies, but they’ll to it on their terms and on their time, not yours. This shift in the balance of power to the consumer necessitates a shift in communications strategy for your company. Your focus can no longer be solely on your outbound message but now must recognize and accommodate the need for two-way communications that integrates customer service, not just sales.

So, what are the new rules?

1. become an active listener. Conversations are going on all day that mention your company by name. You need an active listening outpost that captures these conversations and funnels them to the appropriate internal people to respond. Is someone having a problem with your product? Contact them to see how you can help. Send them a link to an owner’s manual. Put them in touch with your company’s 800 support number. Link them to their local retail outlet where they can get the help they need.
   Is someone ranting about your product and claiming that you suck? You have two choices: let them rant and spread their vitriol across the web or step in and attempt to defuse their anger. Will you convert all the ranters to raving fans? Probably not, but without an active listening strategy, these rants will occur without your influence and they will all end badly for you.
2. involve listeners throughout your organization. Most organizations plan only to listen with sales personnel, eager to jump on any mention of their company as a sales opportunity. However, most companies will find that customer service will be a larger priority for those mentioning your company by name. Make sure you have people actively listening and ready to respond from customer service, product development, your executive suite and even your legal and HR departments.
3. respond immediately. Your 800 number is staffed and answered at least during your business hours, and so should your social media channels. You can’t impose communications methods on your clients. They’ll let you know how they want to get in touch with you. Some will phone, some will email and some will contact you through Twitter. It’s your job to be ready to respond immediately no matter how they contact you.
4. empower listeners to resolve problems. If you assign an employee to monitor customer service issues on Twitter, it’s essential that you empower them to resolve the issues that they encounter. There’s nothing more frustrating than dealing with a nameless, faceless and voiceless person who does nothing more than take your name for someone else to deal with tomorrow. Responding with immediacy simply magnifies the customer’s frustration if you instantly tell them that there’s nothing you can do.
5. apologize. accept responsibility. tell them how you’ll solve their problem. Face it, there are times when your customer has legitimate complaints about your company, product or service. It’s unavoidable. Your customers don’t expect perfection, but they do expect you to apologize for their troubles, accept full responsibility and then tell them exactly how you’re going to make things right. And then do it. It’s not complicated, but it’s amazing how few companies get it right.
6. continue the conversation until the customer determines it’s over. I tweeted this week about problems I had with a Sony Reader ebook. A phone call to their support line that took nearly an hour could have been reduced to a minute or two if the support rep had simply asked the right question first: Do you have a Mac or a PC? I was annoyed and frustrated and vented in a tweet that was read by someone at Sony. To their credit, they responded:
   Sorry to hear you’re having a bad experience. What is going on? Can we help?
   I sent them a reply and then… nothing. But I wasn’t done yet. I still wanted to know how they’re addressing the issue of Mac users who cannot upgrade their firmware and therefore cannot use their latest Reader software. Instead I got silence. My conclusion: they don’t have the capacity to deliver exceptional user experiences and their half-assed Twitter response just confirms my perception of their company.
7. don’t forget marketing fundamentals. There is no better time to cement a customer relationship than after you reach out to help them solve a problem. Even if the problem wasn’t entirely solved, you have the ability to appease them if you send them a coupon for your online store, enroll them in your Customer VIP program or register them in your free online training program. You rarely have person-to-person contact with your customers, so don’t blow it. Do something to delight them and remain memorable for all the right reasons.

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Over the past year I’ve been asked by several friends to help them prepare for and conduct their job searches. These professionals needed the standard job hunting tools: a distinctive, well-written resume, thoughtful cover letters and a thorough understanding of their personal strengths with stories that clearly demonstrated these strengths in action.

But those standard elements were just the starting point. The emergence of hugely popular social media platforms now enables job seekers to extend their reach and power  to connect with an audience that was previously inaccessible.

Every major study of employment conducted over the past 20 years confirms that the way that most people find jobs is through some type of personal connection. A tip from a friend who knows that her company is hiring. A personal introduction to a manager who’s expanding his department. Or a connection made at an industry networking event. People hire people they feel safe and comfortable with, and personal references increase the likelihood that you’ll be a safe hire.

So, how can you build your personal network and increase your chances of finding your ideal job?  Here are some quick tips:

1. Create a blog that centers around your professional expertise. Then fill it with posts. Done right, your blog will be more effective than any resume in communicating the level of your professional knowledge and insight and establishing your personal brand.
2. Make sure the name or tagline of your blog clearly conveys your special professional skills
3. Create a series of posts that teach me something about what you do. Include pictures, diagrams, samples and even a portfolio of your most effective work product. No matter what your specialty, from driving a truck to running a hedge fund, there is plenty of material you can create to educate others.
4. Read and comment on other bloggers’ sites. Every day.
5. Let the other bloggers in your industry know you exist. Send them your posts. Start a conversation. And ask them to add your blog to their blogroll so the search engines find you and rank you.
6. Go to industry events. Go online and check the monthly schedules for all the professional organizations in your area. Then attend with a pocketful of business cards that includes all of  your social media contact information.
7. When you meet someone you’d like to work for, follow them on every social media channel. Read their blog, follow their tweets, read their LinkedIn profile. Learn everything you can about them so you can stay in touch and send them articles and links you know they’ll be interested in. Help them and there’s a good chance they’ll help you.
8. Follow staffing and recruiting professionals on Twitter, facebook and LinkedIn. Their blog posts and tweets are full of useful information that can help you refine your resume, hone your interviewing skills and alert you to job openings.
9. Clean up your online networking profiles to ensure that there is nothing embarrassing or potentially offensive. No photos of you drinking, smoking or engaged in any potentially disturbing activity. Untag yourself from any potentially offensive photos that exist on any of your friends’ photo pages. Remove any offensive or vulgar language. Then modify your privacy settings so your most personal information remains private and unseen except by your closest friends.
10. Search for and connect with similar professionals on all the major social media platforms. Start conversations with them, participate in online forums and contribute to their groups. Create a Twitter list that includes only these professionals so you stay focused like a laser beam.

Remember, by leveraging these social media platforms, you get a chance to reach not only your contacts, but the entire constellation of contacts that are just one or two degrees removed from you. And you never know who’s hiring.

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This past week saw the public release of three of the silliest attempts by professional sporting associations to manage and control the use of social media channels. The NFL, the SEC (who count as professional in my book, since three of their teams could beat last year’s Detroit Lions) and the USTA all published social media guidelines intended to control the dissemination of information by players, coaches, media representatives and even fans.

The SEC was first out of the gate with their near universal prohibition on any and all social media communications during a game. Yep, their first draft even prohibited college gameday fans from tweeting about or, heaven forbid, sending a photo of, their team’s gridiron splendor. To their credit, the SEC revised their published guidelines and acceded to the desires of rabid and frequently gun-toting fans to celebrate through concise tweets the magnificence of their student-athletes and their impressive SAT scores 40 yard dash times. As long as there are no commercial interests attached to their 140 character broadcasts.

The NFL, in all their controlling authority, were next to publish a set of draconian restrictions on social media participation. This time, the league’s prohibitions were directed at players (and anyone representing them), coaches and officials from engaging on any social media channel from 90 minutes before gametime until after all media interviews after the game’s completion. The media were also put on warning about sending any tweets or other messages that could compete with the broadcast of the game. So, a fan sitting a row below the press booth can tweet the score, but the reporter sitting six feet above him cannot. Makes sense to me.

The USTA released the silliest and least enforceable social media policy, warning against the dissemination of “certain sensitive information” that could be considered “inside information” about a match. Even Andy Roddick commented on the lameness of the USTA’s efforts. Specifically, the USTA is concerned about:

“information about the likely participation or likely performance of a player in an event or concerning the weather, court conditions, status, outcome or any other aspect of an event which is known by a Covered Person and is not information in the public domain.”

But, once someone tweets about court conditions or weather, doesn’t it immediately become public domain? Are there really any super-sensitive tennis secrets that, if revealed, would alter the fundamental nature of the sport itself?

I can understand the league prohibitions on tweeting during games. Players, coaches and officials should be focused on the game itself, not on satisfying their Twitter followers or Facebook Fans with status updates. But prohibitions on media members and even fans is both ridiculous – do they really believe we won’t tune in to watch the game if we can get a Twitter update instead – and utterly unenforceable.

Want some reasonable social media guidelines?:

1. explore ways to engage online before, during and after the games. Post a scrolling Twitter feed on the scoreboard with a scrolling feed of all comments that include your team’s hashtag. I did this during the Final Four, and the Twitter feed was more fun than the game. There are some hilarious tweets flying through the ether that could be shared with the entire stadium.
2. toss up a twitter poll during the game to make the game more interactive. Twitter poll question: Will Tom Brady throw for more yards today than the entire Cleveland Brown offense generates? 63% say YES.
3. put a highlight YouTube video up on your Facebook Fanpage at halftime and again after the game. Tweet about the video so fans can click a link and watch in the stands on their iPhones and Blackberrys.
4. sponsor contests that spectators can enter via Twitter
5. publish online stats, again distributed realtime via Twitter and Facebook
6. accept the fact that you cannot control this social media phenomenon. You can continue to publish more and more specific prohibitions and narrowly defined exceptions in a vain effort to wrestle control of these assorted publicly directed channels, but you are tilting at online windmills. Embrace the brave new world of social media, and learn how to harness its power to fulfill your own goals. They shouldn’t be too different from your fans’.

Social media can be your friend. If you play nice.

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A recent study released by Universal McCann reveals that we are immersed in the fourth wave of internet usage characterized by social networking participation. Their study notes that social networks are becoming the dominant platform for personal interaction and content creation and distribution.

The global internet audience now totals 625 million people, with almost 100 million of those users located in the United States. Nearly two-thirds of these users are active in one or more social networks.

What’s also revealed is how these users spend their time on the social networks. The most popular activity was watching video, followed by listening to streaming audio, blogging and connecting with friends.

What does this mean for you or your industry?

First of all, the place to connect with people – whether personally or professionally – is on one of the social networks. They’ve made their choice how they want to interact with others, and it’s not through email. For professionals, this typically means LinkedIn, though Facebook is being used more and more by professionals who have learned to adjust their privacy settings so as not to share overly personal information with other professional contacts.

These trends also mean that you need to generate content that is interesting, engaging and compelling enough to generate views and inspire your connections to share your content with their own network of friends and colleagues. The dominant format for this content: video. If you’re not creating videos to put on your site, your blog, your LinkedIn page, your Facebook Fan Page, then it’s time to start.

But don’t stop with video. Over 70% of social networkers also post photos to their pages. People want to see who they’re connecting with, and a thoughtfully designed series of photos can generate a powerful impression. For the professional, these can include images of your office, your personal workspace, your coworkers and even photos from events that you participate in. Sharing some personal visual insights will increase your familiarity, strengthening your connections with your networks.

Finally, if your company really wants to engage online, you need to create a community that’s worth joining. That means frequently updated, compelling content. The promise of interaction with other, like-minded people. A thoughtful, meaningful – even delightful – user experience. And the ability to listen to your community members and adjust your activities to satisfy their needs, not yours.

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Cheezhead this week wrote about Monster.com’s recent announcement that they will (for a hefty fee) execute a social media strategy for their clients.

What’s noticeable about this announcement isn’t that large companies are becoming aware of the value of social media and are trying to cash in on the gold rush of consulting fees that uncertain and unfamiliar companies will fork over to play in the social media pool.

No, the shocking thing about this announcement is that Monster.com has absolutely no social media presence themselves. They don’t tweet. They have no Facebook page. And I can’t find a Monster blog. All of which suggests that perhaps they’re not the best source of social media advice.

What’s also disturbing is that they don’t promise any tangible ROI, just a number of impressions. That’s right, for a mere $12,000 they will set up a Facebook page and Twitter profile for your comapny and promise that a banner ad will appear on 2 million Facebook pages.  Are you whipping out your checkbook yet?

Developing a social media strategy isn’t something that you can outsource to a third party. It should be part of your strategic marketing plan with specific objectives and an anticipated ROI. Company participants need to engage online in genuine conversations. Bloggers need to write about their real world issues. Problems. Successes. Difficult issues. Complex questions. With an authentic, human voice.

It’s not easy, it’s not cheap, it’s not quick and it’s not someone else’s responsibility.

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Living in Cleveland, as I do, I have frequent conversations with executives who run prototypical rust-belt businesses. Heavy manufacturing, industrial distribution and professional services that support these core businesses that are decidedly unsexy and unremarkable.

What’s surprising about these discussions is how many of these executives view their own companies as unexceptional and nondescript. Which begs the question: If you don’t think your company is remarkable and unique, why would anyone else?

As the former owner of a manufacturing company that produced labeling machines (it doesn’t get less sexy than labeling) I can attest to the dysfunctional industrial mindset that dominates entire industry sectors. Manufacturers are obsessed with their physical equipment, not what it is capable of providing. Distributors are the sum of their products, not the value they add in knowledge, responsiveness and expertise. And service companies have absolutely no idea how to separate themselves from nearly identical competitors.

When I hear these executives describe their own company in these terms, I see boundless opportunity. In most cases, their competitors behave in exactly the same way, enabling a savvy, thoughtful  and creative marketer to create a distinctive and memorable presence in their industry sector. And with the proliferation of penetrating social media tools, the ability to create an impression and reach your targets with precision and frequency has never been greater.

So if I can see the opportunity, why can’t they? I hear the same excuses over and over, including:

1. My customers aren’t on the internet. I was wondering who it was that wasn’t on the internet at all. Turns out it’s always the clients and prospects of every industrial executive I speak with. Theirs are the ones who don’t use e-mail, never watch anything on YouTube, get their news exclusively from newspapers, still use film cameras, listen only to CD’s and still deliver presentations from a stack of transparencies. I don’t believe it. What’s more believable is that these companies have never provided any reason for any of their clients to use the internet to gather information, gain knowledge or, heaven forbid, entertain.
2. My customers buy on price, so what’s the point? The point is that you’ve never given your clients any reason to base their buying decision on anything other than price. That’s the fundamental problem. You need to become more valuable, and a thoughtful social media program can communicate your distinctive abilities, and reinforce the true value you deliver.
3. What would I say? At first, it’s not about what you say, but how you contribute. How can you help? What do you know that you can share? It’s about them, not about you. Link to articles that you think they would find helpful and interesting. Link to videos that are instructive and entertaining. Link to research that will help their strategic business decisions. And write about the successes that you’ve contributed to and the problems that you’ve helped overcome. Nobody’s expecting brilliance. Insight will do.
4. I don’t have the time. What priorities do you have that are greater than developing your business? Building close relationships with your prospects and clients is not something you can outsource to a marketing firm. Your web developer cannot substitute Flash for real conversations. Want to demonstrate your commitment? Spend some time each day participating. If you don’t commit and engage, neither will your staff.
5. I would lose control. For many old school executives, the concept of social media participation is downright scary. What do you mean people can leave comments? What if they say bad things about us? How can I control what my employees say online? For the command and control executive, the openness of the social media channels strikes fear in their heart. For these executives, I can only commiserate and offer the limited consolation that the new world of social media marketing won’t be that bad if you’re authentic, open, truthful and helpful. Now is that too hard?

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I had a meeting this morning with Michael DeAloia, Cleveland’s former TechCzar, who has spent virtually his entire career involved in assorted aspects of business development. As the founder of several technology start-ups, an advisor to emerging technology companies, former director of technology development for the city of Cleveland, former company owner, CFO and director of business development for several Cleveland area technology firms, the TechCzar is intimately familiar with the essential financial elements that enable business growth and success.

He’s also a social media maven, with two blogs of his own, a daily fixture on assorted social media platforms and the founder of two social media startups. Basically, he’s got the credentials, the experience and the detailed understanding of the potential of social media to advance specific business objectives. So, when he talks about executing social media strategies, a lot of savvy people in town listen.

That’s why I wanted to hear his perspective on social media ROI – a topic that’s inflamed the Twittersphere since Olivier Blanchard published his series of blog posts that excoriated the pretentious social media gurus who promote unreliable and flawed ROI models.

So, does ROI it exist? Should it be tracked? And, if so, how should it be measured?

As Michael makes clear, an essential element of any social media strategy is how that strategy contributes to business development. And business development is clearly defined as activity that generates revenue. It really is that simple.

Salesforce.com recently introduced tools that integrate the online CRM system with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, thereby enabling their users to track contact and activity originating in the social media sphere. Salesforce’s integration an acknowledgement that companies need to track all of their business development activities, not just those emanating from the historic direct marketing channels. As marketing investment shifts to the new social media platforms, executives will need firm data to determine the efficacy and effectiveness of their assorted social media channels.

Sorry if this sounds so Web 1.o, but this is the real world, where investment decisions are based on hard data, not on warm feelings. Bottom line, if your social media efforts do not translate into an increased number of transactions, larger transactions, increased margins or reduced costs, then your insistence on the value of your conversations, retweets and Fan Page subscriptions is a pure and limpid farce.

As Michael concludes: “Dollars in the bank, baby.” Truth.

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