It happened again last week.

A pink slip is not what we want to see these days

Another long-time technical sales person who I had scheduled a call with for networking, was downsized after the company lost a big client.  This person (with 20 years with the company) and her boss were the ones they decided to let go.

Lucky for her that she has been an avid LinkedIn user for business development and has a strong network going for her. If you lost your job today would your online and offline network be ready?  Do you have a robust list of diverse contacts ready to email, mail and contact?

Technical expertise does not ensure anything!

I think we are all just a private meeting away from losing our jobs.  In the past, I have always felt that my engineering degree, sales skills and drive ensured my place at any organization.  Today, I am not sure judging by some of the high quality people I meet with who have been recently downsized.  Although I have my own consulting practice, even I am a few clients away from being “under employed” should project budgets be cut.

10 Reasons to adjust your thinking

Recently I came across a blog post by Babette Burdick talking about engineers and job security. She covered “10 reasons why your technical expertise may not ensure job security.” The research was done using LinkedIn Groups (my favorite).  It definitely hit some key points:

1.  Regardless of positions – we are all responsible for revenue generation.
2.  We must all be prepared to work harder, longer and as a team to engage with customers.
3.  The situation is bigger than all of us – no guarantees anymore about our jobs, the company surviving, or clients staying solvent.
4.  Connectivity and engagement internally and externally with authenticity, transparency and knowledge share is the approach we need to integrate.
5.  Be willing to cross lines of responsibility and roles in an effort to provide value and become an advocate for customers.
6.  Collaborate amongst teams, between departments, with your partners, in all cases include customers. This builds trust across many fronts.
7.  Time to get rid of attitudes. Bottom up and top down
8.  Listen to your clients and their problems and issues.  Listen to engineering to understand the challenges they face.
9. Business Development is a team sport
10.  The future will look different with technical and sales integrated by new ways of communicating with clients, the market, and each other.  If you can make this shift you can be in the lead.

Where do you fit it?

I have experienced the shift in the sales process as customers are educating themselves differently using the Internet to find resources, compare products and suppliers based on what they can find online. We all participate to one extent or another in the recommendation chain, where people are asking their connections – offline and online- the question “Whom do you recommend?”

The most important attribute we can develop is the ability to be an early adopter of technology such as Internet, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.

Social media plays a role

Understanding social media and recognizing that the customer is in control can help you to shift to a new strategies and a different way of business development.  We have all shut down from the onslaught of TV, Radio, Print, and email messages – over 2000 outbound messages per day or more. We only want companies, who we have given permission, allowed into our inner circle. Inbound marketing is the new battle cry! It is defined by techniques that help you get found by people who search for your product.

Communication on multiple levels is key.

I think social media as a tactical consideration can help address many of the points Burdick made in her post. It must be applied across the organization however. Any social media strategy should include input from customers and all departments. Working with a business focused methodology for assessing the social ecosystem is the right approach. This doesn’t have to be a long drawn out process.

• Incorporate known information
• Listen first before you jump right in
• Take small steps with tools and activities
• Plan to reevaluate in a shorter time frame
• Measure and track the results.

To paraphrase one of my favorite people Seth Godin – If you do nothing, more time will pass, and the technology will move further ahead.  Have the will to start today.

What type of action do you plan to make for your organization? And before the end of the year?

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Are you using any type of social media for engaging with your customers?

Do you have a great story of how some aspect of networking online brought a relationship to the door that would not have occurred otherwise?  I have included one from my recent experience and talk about why I am thankful for social media in my business development efforts.  Listen in on the last in a series of video blog post (using my handy Flip Video on a tripod) on how LinkedIn connections created an opportunity in a very virtual way.

This is Part 3 in a series of Social Media Thankfulness. Part 1 addressed family connections.  Part 2 spoke to Friend Relationships. So of course I covered my business relationships in this last video post. Note, my video camera is on a tripod and I do have two hands on the wheel.

Social Relationship Management

I am also thankful that a tool has been created to help me continue to use social media in the right way.  In my business use of social media I have extended myself to several networks for purposeful reasons and with a strategy.  I use a social relationship management tool called xeesm.com/wendysoucie to manage all my social media links and my ongoing efforts to target, touch and track my efforts.  This tool is in Beta but has recently been opened for public beta testing.  This has really helped focus my efforts and remind me when, where and how long ago I made a personal connection with one of my contacts.

What other tools am I using?

For the business to business market that I consult to, I use LinkedIn primarily.  I provide strategy for companies and training on a variety of social media tools. Even with a broad understanding of how to use many tools, I have to stay focused on where my target audience is. So LinkedIn works for that.

I am extending to Youtube with video blog posts as you can see by this weeks blog posts.  This action occurred after a great presentation by Lee Aase at the AAF Madison luncheon on the virtues of video interviews and posting using Youtube.  I have been following him for his great blog site called Social Media University Global .

One site I think may be overlooked is Slideshare for presentation posting and networking. There is a lot content there and because people are sharing presentations, you can learn alot from peers in your professional space from all over the world.   I think people may forget that networking can happen there as well. I recently saw a great presentation by Social Media Academy alumni  Walter Adamson on slideshare networking that really reinforced this for me.   Expect to see a local Madison presentation by me in the future on this unique and helpful site.

I use Twitter in a variety of ways and with two profiles.  One for me personally @wendysoucie and my focus, but I try and retweet interesting related conversations on @WIsocialmedia for anything related to technology, social media and good business news in Wisconsin. I am not a rabid twitterati fanatic but will tweet a conference or seminar, and when in the office will always have Tweetdeck open to watch the conversations. I am creating a new strategy for Twitter for January and currently are busy following various manufacturers, B2B conversations, and consultants in this space. In January, a collaborative effort I am organizing will be doing a Twitter for business workshop that will focus on strategy, public relations and blogging.  Can’t wait to put the finishing touches on that.

Facebook is growing for me and I use it for both business and social at this point. I am trying to perfect the groups involvement and activity the way I do it on LinkedIn.  It is totally different so I need to adjust my time if I want to learn some new techniques or to engage at a deeper level.  I am just not sure how I will proceed with that. Expect to see a Facebook for business in February co-presented with several people actively using that tool for promotion with a product.

Do you have a good story about social media? What tools are you using to manage the whole relationship part if you are on multiple platforms?

I hope you share

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In Part 1 of this series, I suggested you look at your existing marketing content to see how you might re purpose this for social media.  We created 5 new pieces of content from your company’s Frequently Asked Questions. For Part 2, let’s work on what you can do with this new material.

Creating social media accounts  – its about people

Next, let assume that you aren’t currently on any social media site – you will have to create a couple of accounts at some social media sites.  Remember these are not anonymous business accounts.  Decide what staff person is interested and willing to participate on social media sites and is ready with your support to do this long term. Allocate a set amount of time each day or each week, create guidelines and policies for this individual that support your business goals.

1. Create accounts at Youtube.com, pitchengine.com, Ezine or doc.com, Slideshare.net, and Itunes.

2. Write and edit your article

3. Edit your video clip with free, simple video editing software. Windows Movie Maker and Flip Video editing software are both free products.

4. Build a PowerPoint presentation of less that 10 slides. use only 1 intro slide with contact info on it and repeat as first and last slide.

5. Create an audio file from the separate digital recording of the Q&A interview (should be done at the same time as the flip video recording.

Tips: Brand your video or slide set with a title, your website and contact info to the beginning and end of clip/presentation. Also make sure you introduce each person in the audio recording prior to the interview so you capture that in sound.

Add appropriate content to social media sites

1. Post article on enews sites, pitchengine.com, event on your website, trade website, online news site and local news paper.

2. Post video on Youtube.com and your website/blog.  Share the link with your connections.

3. Upload audio to Itunes.com in the podcast category. Share with your connections.

4. Add the PowerPoint slides to Slideshare.net.  Share with your connections.

Tip:  Make sure you use the tag features for each social media site.  This is especially important for the video, audio and slide content.

Then make sure your customers know about this free information by

• Send email out to your mailing list giving them the links to wherever you posted content.
• Update your status on any active social media sites.
• Ask every employee at the company (and yes, they are on social media) to do the same.

For traditional marketing efforts, add the link into your next print newsletter, add as note in your invoices, add as signature in your emails and on any letters.

Next month, pick another piece of marketing material, previous article or interview and start the process over again.

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As you can see from my twitter update this week I spent some time at the Midwest Internet Marketing Super Conference investing in Internet Marketing and Social Media education. I attended because the CEO and VP of Integrated Alliances were presenting on “How to Make Money Using Social Media with LinkedIn.”

Mike O'Neil and Lori Ruff of Integrated Alliances during their presentation

Another reason that I wanted to attend was to hear one particular speak named Joel Bauer.  The benefit I got this weekend was also hearing Perry Belcher talk about Twitter and his approach as well as Dr. Harlan Kilstein talking about NLP Copywriting. This was my first opportunity to tweet live during a meeting about key points.  By following the Twitter hashtag #MSC I could follow what points others were making as well.

I can see where some of the new Twitter conference applications coming out can really make this more of a social experience and let the group attending exchange even more thoughts before during and after a conference of this type.  Recently OmniPress in Madison introduced Conference 2.0 – a community conference Web 2.0 introduction that should bring an improvement to the conference circuit on a communication level.

I recently had the opportunity to view a demo of this new software and was impressed  with the feature that lets you connect with the speakers ahead of time as well as to ask questions afterward.  The benefits of that feature are pretty obvious.  Have ever been to a large conference with multiple presentations that you feel you must attend?  Plenty of times I have been unable or unwilling to wait in the line to ask a more private question of the speaker. This would give me the chance to send it later, or for those of us who might bring our laptop, Iphone, or smartphone to the conference – email, tweet or post a question for the speaker immediately.

Back to the conference, and of particular interest to me, were the variety of approaches and ways to incorporate social media tools into a particular business strategy. The top point everyone made was absolutely to have a strategy that fits your business goals, pick the tools that help you, and build your network in a meaningful way.

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University Of Phoenix - Event Sponsor

Business Connections of Greater Madison Presentation today at 5:00 pm at University of Phoenix eastside campus on High Crossing (you can see the building from the beltline).

Great success story on growing a LinkedIn group using various social media.  The result was the group grew from a small 65 people to over 700 by the time of the presentation.  There was a plan to do this and it was very strategically thought out by Kristin Mastin who is the manager of the group.  By specifically inviting key people into the group, speaking with many personally, via email and on LinkedIn, Kristin has created a very active and engaged group. 

Many of these members will meet for the first time tonight during a presentation I will be giving on LinkedIn tips and techniques.  It will be great to hear their questions, opinions of the Event app in LinkedIn and shake hands with many of the attendees who actively Linked with me before the event.

The message of this exercise is two fold.  The network has grown which does matter in social media.  The second is the pulling the group together for a face to face networking opportunity.

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RT @tweetmeme 10 Reasons Why Your Business Should be Using Twitter http://u.mavrev.com/anzz

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