Orange Envelopes | Small Business Optimized Marketing > By Design

Product innovation is expensive. Too expensive to be mishandled by a careless handoff to your marketing and sales departments at precisely the moment when you could convert interest in your shiny new product into coveted cash generating sales.

I’m amazed – no, actually appalled – at the number of companies who spend tens of thousands of dollars developing a new product, take it to a trade show, gain press recognition and even Best of Show awards and then do absolutely nothing to capitalize on the interest generated or monetize their efforts with a thoughtful sales strategy.

Two recent examples stand out for me:

At last month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Griffin introduced an iPad mount that screws onto the end of a microphone stand. It’s the perfect solution for me since I like to use my iPad as a teleprompter for online videos that I post to assorted blogs, and the mic stand holder would let me position the iPad directly above the tripod holding my camera.

Apparently I’m not the only one who sees the appeal of  this innovation, since Griffin generated a lot of media mentions including major technology blogs like Gizmodo and tuaw.

Glad You Like Us. Now Go Away.
But heading over to the Griffin website, I discovered that despite its announcement, the product wasn’t available for sale but was Coming Soon. What does that mean? It means that if I want the mic stand mount I have to keep checking back every few days until it actually becomes available. Griffin took no steps to capture my identity to inform me when it becomes available, didn’t ask me for an email address to keep in touch, didn’t  take a pre-order (which I would have paid for) and, in general, did absolutely nothing to connect with me and potentially sell me on this or other Griffin iPad related products.

They wasted an ideal opportunity to convert innovation into sales.

Based on the size of their booth at CES, I’d bet that Griffin spent more than $100,000 to attend the CES and showcase their products, not including the cost of developing the products themselves, yet their  efforts resulted in annoyance and alienation because they failed to implement any method to satisfy customer interest or plan to get their new products out of their development lab and into our hands.

It Gets Worse
As badly as Griffin handled the handoff from innovation to sales, they’re all-stars compared to MacWorld Best of Show Winner Scosche.

At this month’s Macworld Expo, the device manufacturer introduced a terrific innovation that iPod and iPhone users have been clamoring for: a Bluetooth connected pulse monitoring strap that will track your pulse and calories burned throughout your workout.

The product was so innovative that Macworld name the myTrek one of the Best in Show winners and published a lengthy article detailing the product’s features.

Result: Nothing
Who could ask for more? Well, I could. Because I actually tried to visit their website to buy the product. I’ve been waiting months for someone to introduce this precise product to track my workouts so I clicked over to their website and found…nothing.

That’s right. Nothing. Not a product page, not a press release, not a blog post, not a single mention. Confused, I turned to their Search utility and entered myTrek. Again, nothing.

Innovation FAIL
So Scosche invested thousands to develop a highly sought after product integrated with the single most popular mobile phone in the world, they introduced it at the biggest Apple show in the country and gained Best in Show honors yet they failed not only to promote the product on their corporate home page, but failed to create a web page for the product at all.

And the only thing truly surprising is that they’re not the only innovation-focused company that treats its products with such disregard.

Corporate innovation is intended to produce results. Results that can be measured in dollars collected. There’s simply no excuse for any company to invest in innovation projects yet ignore the revenue  producing potential of those projects by failing to integrate sales and marketing functions from the  start so that the company can maximize the return on their investment and realize the full potential of their innovation.

A front page article in last week’s Wall Street Journal documented the demise of Liz Claiborne, one of women’s fashions most successful product lines for 34 years. The company that pioneered working women’s apparel after its introduction in 1976, Liz Claiborne has been removed from virtually every tony retailer and is now available exclusively through JC Penney.

It was a precipitous and entirely avoidable fall.

Liz Claiborne broke the first commandment of branding: Be true to your clients and yourselves.

Claiborne made its name by designing stylish career wear for the millions of women, particularly younger women, entering the workforce. Their pieces were consistently styled and well made, delivering a specific brand promise to the women who stocked their closets with Claiborne ensembles that could be mixed and matched to create multiple outfits from a handful of separates.

Claiborne developed a loyal and trusting following of women who appreciated her collections. But with her retirement from the company in 1989, the brand began to suffer. There was no designer who shared Liz Claiborne’s design aesthetic and without a design leader, the company regressed to a financial leader whose focus was the bottom line, not the hemline.

Design by committee emerged, diluting the Claiborne brand promise in a fruitless pursuit of the youth culture. Their working women loyalists took notice and turned their backs on uninspired and confusing Claiborne collections that were considered fashion forward but not geared toward working women, the brand’s core constituency.

The dispiriting Claiborne story was in sharp contrast to the story that Jay Greene recounts in his book Design is How it Works. Porsche has remained remarkably successful in an industry that has few perpetually thriving automakers. Porsche attributes their success to an unyielding devotion to the design principles encompassed in the very first 911 that debuted in 1963.

Since their very first car, Porsche has remained true to its design DNA by incorporating specific design cues – intakes instead of a radiator grill, a car that always tapers to the rear, open wheel rims to display the strong brake calipers, front fenders always higher than the hood, ignition always on the left of the steering wheel and vertically oriented dashboards – that support their vision of a car that is all about driving performance and authenticity.

Porsche has never varied from a design approach that produces cars that their own designers crave. They never cut corners. They never adopt trends that risk the company’s credibility. And they never try to appeal to everybody.

Porsche designers intuitively understand the desires of their most passionate drivers and develop new cars with them in mind. Liz Claiborne took a different tack and abandoned their brand promise and with it their most loyal clients in pursuit of a younger, more active customer. They alienated their most loyal customers without generating any traction with the fickle and trend conscious youth market who want nothing to do with the company who makes clothes for their mothers.

Porsche has had an endless string of hits, including their Boxster, Cayman, Cayenne and Panamera and reported record profits in 2009. Liz Claiborne has virtually ceased to exist. Breaking your brand promise appears to have severe repercussions. If only the Claiborne executives drove Porsches, they’d understand.

How many other successful brands have hastened their corporate demise by abandoning their core principles and their most loyal customers? Sadly, I’ll bet it’s long. Real long.

What defines your Microsoft experience?

Frustration?… Confusion?… Anger?

My personal list of Microsoft-inspired adjectives is lengthy, and nowhere on that list appears the word delight.

Frustrated with their perennial regard as the ugly and undesirable stepsister to Apple’s beloved fair maiden Microsoft decided to take action to reclaim their throne and assert their benevolent rule in the technology kingdom.

So, what does Microsoft, in all their imperial wisdom do to stand apart and reassert the provenance of their brand? Why they copy Apple’s retail store, of course. Right down to the fixtures.

Gizmodo acquired a leaked PowerPoint presentation detailing the design of the planned Microsoft retail stores, and after reviewing their plans one thought springs instantly to mind: plagiarism. Seriously, if a college architecture or design student submitted this presentation as a class project to create a new retail design, their professor would be entirely justified in red stamping “PLAGIARISM” across the cover page and charging the student with academic fraud.

When will companies learn that copying innovation and clever design does not bestow those qualities upon your organization?

I predict that within 24 months, Microsoft will realize the futility of copying Apple’s retail efforts and shutter their retail stores. The reasons why:

1. Apple delivers a unique Apple Experience that Microsoft cannot emulate, no matter how hard they try. Apple is a design company that expresses their design innovation through technology. Microsoft is a technology company that attempts to apply design elements to their technology after it’s created. Apple delivers an experience. Microsoft delivers a product. Delivering an exceptional user experience is in Apple’s corporate DNA. It is absent in Microsoft’s corporate DNA. And it’s not about to change.
2. Apple has total control over all of their hardware and software products, Microsoft simply licenses their technology to third parties. Apple maintains its near total control over its user experience by designing, developing and manufacturing every device themselves. This maniacal level of control ensures that there are no missteps in delivering a memorable and delightful user experience. But Microsoft adopted a dramatically different business model, licensing their technologies to thousands of companies to integrate into third party computers and devices. Microsoft’s licensing model expands Microsoft’s market but eliminates their ability to control how the software and hardware components interact with the user.
3. Apple focuses on simplicity while the Microsoft universe is inherently complex. Compared to the thousands of different products that integrate Microsoft technology, Apple offers only a handful of computers, tablets, phones and devices. Their limited product offerings allow Apple to retain control while the millions of iterations of Microsoft products expand the PC universe but add technical complexity and near infinite opportunities for user frustration.
4. It’s the culture, stupid. Steve Jobs instilled an innovation centered culture in Apple that has allowed them to create entirely new segments of technology. Microsoft is not known for their innovation and has not fostered a corporate culture that celebrates innovation and understands how to generate new ideas and new markets. And they apparently never will.
5. Microsoft can’t compete on price with their retail competitors. Apple maintains rigorous control over its distribution channel. They do not allow their products to be discounted, so the price you pay at the Apple store is the same that you pay at Best Buy. However, Microsoft will not be able to discount their offerings or offer the same number of configurations as their larger retail competitors. So why would anyone pay more to buy at Microsoft?
6. Renting your store out for birthday parties does not qualify as a brand differentiator. Nuff said.
7. Opening your stores next to existing Apple stores magnifies your lameness. We all know who was first. We all know who copied whom. Opening your store adjacent to an Apple store reinforces the perception that you have no original ideas.
8. Microsoft’s not cool. Apple is. Do you know anyone who camped out overnight to be the first to get the new Zune? Of course you don’t. No one does. Because Microsoft products are cool anti-matter.

The clock is ticking. When the last door shuts I’ll let you know.

I never thought I’d have to write the following sentence, but a recent event demonstrated otherwise:

Never combine a condolence letter with a blatant, self-serving sales pitch.

The backstory:

Yesterday I received a message through LinkedIn from the CEO of a local firm that specializes in social media marketing. Yep, one of our own. The message’s subject line read: We heard through the grapevine about your loss, referring to the sudden and tragic death of one of my colleagues last week.

I was taken aback by the message since I did not personally know the CEO and had never conducted any type of business with his firm. However, I read on, expecting a standard note of condolence. Holy cow, was I wrong. The message read:

All of us here at Company X are very sorry for your loss. If there is anything we can to to help keep everyone’s chins up, just let us know.

The Technic on July 24th might be a great outing to start looking forward to – we are expecting over 300 and Microsoft has joined the sponsors list.

All the best,

I was stunned. Did he really just suggest that in the aftermath of a shocking personal loss I should start looking forward to a summer picnic he was sponsoring? And then wish me all the best?

This was exploitation of social media at its most crass and tasteless. Apparently, the sender was looking for a way to connect with me to promote his event and decided to use LinkedIn to find me and employ tragedy as his hook. Brilliant marketing strategy.

I did some investigation and found that this CEO actually teaches classes on how to establish strategic business relationships using LinkedIn. Personally, I’d challenge his qualifications.

UPDATE:  The author of the message called me this afternoon to express his regret that his message was interpreted as an insensitive and clumsy attempt at promotion. He explained to me his true intentions which I believe were sincere and supportive. I expressed my appreciation for his reaching out to me personally to clarify his intentions and informed him that I would immediately update my post to reflect his sentiments.

This messaging confusion illustrates one of the biggest drawbacks of communications that take place solely through social media channels: the total absence of non-verbal cues. I’ve been embroiled in SM controversy myself after posting sarcastic comments that were interpreted literally. Attempts at humor have fallen completely flat. In the real world, the recipient of these messages would also receive the verbal intonations, the smile on your face and the suppressed chuckle in your delivery and would understand your actual meaning. In the online world, those cues are missing and can lead to serious misinterpretation.

In this instance, since I did not know the author of the message, I had no emotional connection to him and interpreted his succinct expression of condolence and suggestion that we look forward to this summer’s summer Technic as a tactless attempt at promotion rather than a genuine expression of support and assistance.

Written communications, especially those that deal with sensitive topics, have to be written very carefully and thoughtfully to avoid any chance that your intentions could be misconstrued.

According to research, over 70% of corporate mergers fail to produce any positive results. These transactions, despite long months of strategizing and planning with some of the best business minds in the country, frequently fail to account for the cultural differences and inevitable personal conflicts that can thwart even the smartest strategy.

The same difficulties frequently arise in marketing and social media programs that rely on intricate and detailed plans but fail to account for cultural realities and ingrained behaviors.

Businesses aren’t sterile case studies. They’re collections of individuals who collaborate around a single purpose. And they typically adhere to the values espoused and demonstrated by their company’s leader, not by a lofty mission statement.

Although you may want every company to demonstrate the customer service attitude of Ritz Carlton, the friendliness of Southwest Airlines, the ingenuity of Apple and the thrift of Wal-Mart, that’s simply not the world we live in. Companies frequently disdain customer service, disregard their employees and customers and focus myopically on preserving a rigid and unresponsive business model.

The difficulty in planning a social media strategy for companies that are controlling, insular and generally unresponsive is that social media doesn’t camouflage their true nature, social media reveals it.

When working recently with a large company in devising and executing a social media strategy, I was confronted with conflicting realities. On one hand, the company seemed eager to exploit the potential of social media in reaching their target audience frequently and inexpensively, but on the other hand, the company’s culture incorporated autocratic control, restricted authority among their staff, lacked any feedback mechanisms and romanticized reliance on historical business processes.

A social media program, no matter how carefully designed, wasn’t going to change any existing cultural artifact. In fact, a successful social media rollout would actually have the potential to damage the company’s reputation by revealing its weaknesses to an audience previously shielded from the company’s true nature.

How can you predict social media failure?

1. Obsession with control – many companies believe that as long as they can control their message, they control their brand and, ultimately, their destiny. Social media shifts control to the participants, not the originator of the message. Companies can listen, engage, converse and interact, but they cannot impose control.
2. Unwilling to commit people to the program – your clients have no desire to develop a relationship with your company. Companies are, by their nature, impersonal entities. However, they may be willing to engage with individuals within your company, as long as those individuals contribute something to the conversation. These relationships take time to develop and rarely deliver immediate results. If nobody is devoted to the program, the program withers and dies.
3. Management views social media platforms as time drains – every office tool can be a time drain if the employee misuses it. They can chat with friends on the phone, they can while away hours in the Internet and they can even waste each other’s time in mindless conversation. Facebook is no different. If your employees use it as a tool, it can deliver results. If they use it to connect with high school buddies, you have a management problem, not a social media problem.
4. Think only in terms of pitching – if management hears the word “marketing” and immediately envisions another channel to pump out self-serving sales pitches, they’re doomed. The “social” component of social media is overriding, yet frequently ignored.
5. Management refuses to participate – It’s not a good sign when senior management refuses to participate in any way on any of the social media platforms. The message this sends to their employees is that social media is irrelevant or unnecessary to management and hinders adoption throughout the organization.
6. Users restricted to certain subjects – As a corollary to controlling the message, if users are restricted from engaging in open conversations and required to deal only with specific topics under unyielding rules, then they’re eliminating the human component and diminishing the effectiveness of the conversation.
7. Social media participation isn’t tracked or measured – It’s universally accepted that companies will get more of anything that they measure, and when they refuse to measure staff participation in social media, they’re sending the message that it’s not that important. The result is preordained: limited participation and effectiveness.

There is no getting around it – when strategy confronts culture, culture wins every time. If your company culture is too rigid, controlling and unresponsive to support an effective social media program, the best solution is to pursue your standard marketing tactics and ignore the social media channels entirely. No participation is eminently preferable to desultory participation.

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.

It’s time to counter a growing sentiment among social media types – including some nationally recognized practitioners who really should know better  - that trying to justify your company’s decision to pursue a social media strategy based on ROI is somehow foolish.

Now, these same high priests of social media don’t ever suggest a better alternative or method to determine whether or not your company should pursue a social media strategy, they just insist that you’ve got to do social media because it’s just so darn important, and besides your competitors are.

If their argument sounds like your teenager’s argument insisting that you’ve just got to let him stay out til 2am because everyone else is doing it, well, you’re right.

However, unlike gullible parents, the executives who make investment decisions aren’t easily duped, they don’t jump on every trendy b-school bandwagon and they’re not scared of your newfangled technology. They want more than breathless claims. They want proof.

Twitter is that thing Ashton Kutcher and Oprah play with. Facebook is the place where their teenagers waste their entire evenings. And your preoccupation with these platforms doesn’t convey cutting edge marketing savvy as much as it does pointless obsession.

If you want corporate buy-in and investment, you’ve got to demonstrate how your social media strategy will generate positive returns for the company. In real dollars, with real timelines.

The ROI opponents claim that there’s simply no way to really measure ROI. After all, they claim, How can you put a dollar value on a blog post, a blog comment, or a single tweet? As if that level of granularity is the measure that anyone is looking for.

Or they simply attempt to redefine a financial metric that has been commonly defined and routinely accepted for decades.

Reading just a few recent posts by legacy ROI opponents, I’ve seen ROI redefined as:

• Return on Impact
• Return on Impressions
• Return on Importance
• Return on Influence

And, my personal favorite for its absurd complexity and impenetrable formula: ROI should really be referred to as Return on Conversation whose formula is:

(B • I) (m+s • r)/d] / [O/(b + t + e)]

Brand Equity times the Intent of Communication times (Message plus Suitability times Reach) divided by Sustainability OVER Outcomes divided by the Cost times (the Budget plus Time to Produce plus Experience)

I believe the result is actually measured in Schrute Bucks.

The reality is that ROI is much simpler than that. You only need to know two numbers: how much you gained from your investment, and the total cost of the investment itself. That’s it.

ROI = (Gain – Cost) / Cost

If you spent $1000 and saw an increase in sales of $1500, then your ROI was:

ROI = (1500-1000)/1000 = 50%

I think I know where the disconnect is. Social media engagement typically generates an action that is non-financial in nature. You collect Twitter followers, generate retweets, get comments on your blog, add new Facebook fans, attract YouTube viewers or generate click-throughs to your website.

However, These aren’t ROI. How do I know? Because my banker won’t take Twitter followers in lieu of a check. Clear enough for you?

I don’t want to diminish the importance of engagement with your clients and your prospects. I’m a huge adherent of social media and I recognize its transformative potential, but only if it’s used strategically, with specific objectives that you can track and measure.

ROI doesn’t become ROI until it does one of two things: increases revenue or reduces costs. Those are financial impacts that are real, measurable and put a grin on your CEO’s face.

Determining ROI isn’t a laughing stock metric in the corporate world. Calculating potential ROI demands that you create a strategic plan, consider alternatives and project likely actions and returns from your program. It compels you to define precisely your plan’s objectives, put them down on paper and support them when challenged.

Simply saying that we need a social media program because our competitor has a social media program is absurd. What if their program is drains their  marketing budget without any noticeable effect? Do you want to copy that?

If you want funding, you need to justify your program with more than intemperate claims that we’ve just gotta do something. What’s your goal? To increase revenue or decrease costs? How will you do it? Who will be involved? How much time is necessary to invest? What technology platforms will you support? How will your program fit into your current operational structure? What do you want your conversational partners to do? How will your success be tracked and measured?

If you don’t know the answers, you don’t deserve the funding. Social media marketing is no different from any other marketing, it just uses new channels and has interactivity built-in. If you can’t tell me how you intend to leverage the medium and generate a positive return you can always try again next quarter after you learn.

Marketing has historically been a godsend for lousy companies. With an effective marketing team, even the surliest, most incompetent and inattentive companies could create an illusion of excellence, caring and success.

They could write a powerful and inspirational mission statement professing their devotion to essential core values and tout their commitment to clients and community.

In a word, they could lie.

They were able to craft their own deceit because there was no simple, inexpensive and effective way for any single customer to counter their message. What’s a wronged airline passenger to do when the airline bumps you from a flight, loses your luggage or confines you for hours on a frozen tarmac? Before social media, you simply had to take it. Grudgingly, angrily and frustratingly you simply had no ability to counter the beatific corporate message.

Not anymore.

If there’s any aspect of your business that sucks, you can expect these deficiencies to be magnified, not eliminated, through the effective deployment of social media.

While many large companies believe that they can continue to manage and control their message through social media channels, they’re in for a rude awakening. The explosion of social media platforms and their rapid embrace as a tool of retribution by an increasingly savvy and knowledgeable public means that they control your message, not you.

Want proof? United Airlines – with annual revenues of $17 billion and a massive marketing budget – could not control their corporate message when confronted by a single implacable passenger with a broken guitar. When Dave Carroll, a Canadian musician, could not get satisfaction from United for their baggage handlers breaking his guitar he wrote a clever song, shot a video and posted United Breaks Guitars to YouTube where it has accumulated over seven million views and nearly 25,000 negative comments from similarly disgruntled passengers.

While Dave Carroll’s effort received international attention, there are thousands of similar stories emerging every day on blogs, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. Legitimately unhappy customers who are simply fed up with poor service, lousy products and an uncaring or inattentive company and who decide to let everyone know exactly how rotten you are.

Social media has permanently shifted the balance of power from deep pocketed corporations to passionate and sophisticated social media participants. Got flaws? You’d better fix them.

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.

During last week’s BusinessWire sponsored panel discussion at the City Club in Cleveland (video above), every panelist agreed that determining social media ROI should be a distinct component of any social media campaign. So why do so few companies track any form of ROI?

Because it’s boring.

There, I said it. The cat’s out of the bag. Determining social media ROI is tedious, dull and boring. It requires you to read reports, check analytics, create timelines and check data against specific activities and website minutiae that are profoundly uninspiring, yet absolutely necessary.

Getting a social media program off the ground is fun. It requires strategic planning, creative execution and active engagement. Everything is fresh and exciting. Every new conversation is an affirmation and every relationship is a success.

Tracking the results of this activity, however, is considerably less fun. Although there are excellent software tools, like Radian6, that will measure the success of your social media efforts, most of these cost money. Social media is supposed to be free, isn’t it? So, most small companies will likely develop some home-grown, spreadsheet based tracking mechanisms to determine their ROI.

And then, they’ll be largely ignored or neglected, like 84% of social media programs.

Because tracking ROI requires you to know what you’re measuring, how to measure, how to interpret the data, how and when to establish a baseline, how to measure impact and requires you to track specific transactional activities.

And where’s the fun in that?