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Social CRM a strategy, a philosophy, a technology? – Social Media Academy

April 18, 2010 By 8 Comments

“Three CRM titans Bob Thompson, Paul Greenberg and Denis Pombriant are discussing probably one of the hottest topic in customer relationship strategies.

Bob Thompson raised a very controversial question: Can you do “Social CRM” without Social Media/Networks? Or Without CRM systems?

Paul Greenberg wrote a profound point of view, challenging the reader to think through what CRM really is supposed to do for an organization and their customers. “Thinking it Through Some More: More on What Else? ”

Social CRM. A pretty surprising – or not so surprising counter post was written by thought leader and analyst Denis Pombriant: Can you do social without social technology?”

via Social CRM a strategy, a philosophy has it also technology? – Axel Schultze Social Media Academy.

Wendy’s Note: With thought leaders like these weighing in on what  Social CRM is or is not, I thought it worth sharing.  Over the next few weeks I will be sharing my efforts in making the change to a Social CRM tool Xeesm.com.

You may have noticed my social link profile at xeesm.com/wendysoucie.  The latest application on the road map just introduced in April 2010 is the Xeesm – Edge Social CRM which is the flagship product.

As a long time business development and marketing executive, CRM applications are what keep me organized – at least around the data I collect. With my deep dive into social media in the B2B space, how could I use anything else to manage my relationships with my audience.

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10 Key Engagement Metrics to Track « Social Media Monitoring and Engagement | In My Opinion | Wendy Soucie

April 11, 2010 By 1 Comment
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“Ah, engagement. That sticky word that gets discussed an awful lot in context of social media conversations. But how, exactly, do you look at engagement and keep tabs on the factors that drive it?”

via 10 Key Engagement Metrics to Track « Social Media Monitoring and Engagement – Radian6.

Wendy’s Note: On April 8, 2010 I attended the PR and Social Media Summit at Marquette University. The line up of speakers was excellent, including Amber Nashlund of Radian 6.  Since our Social Media Breakfast Madison group is just starting an effort on tracking and measuring social media results – this post by Amber seemed important to share.

What you measure you can manage.

The key to all the discussion on measuring and tracking is what you measure you can manage. Since we need to know what social media tools work best to achieve our business goals, we need to track. The 80/20 rule works on social media as well. 80% of our revenue is derived from 20% of our efforts. It would be important to know how much time you are spending totally on your social media and on which tools and actions.  When you begin to get results, tracking back to these numbers will be key.

I hope you join us for the next Social Media Breakfast Madison on April 21st at Talula Restaurant (7:30 am registration/networking, 8:00 start) Check out our LinkedIn group (Social Media Breakfast Madison) for more details.

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How LinkedIn will fire up your career – Fortune Magazine

April 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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(Fortune) –”If you need a job, or just want a better one, here’s a number that will give you hope: 50,000. That’s how many people the giant consulting firm Accenture plans to hire this year. Yes, actual jobs, with pay. It’s looking for telecom consultants, finance experts, software specialists, and many more. You could be one of them — but will Accenture find you? To pick these hires the old-fashioned way, the firm would rely on headhunters, employee referrals, and job boards. But the game has changed. To get the attention of John Campagnino, Accenture’s head of global recruiting, you’d better be on the web. To put a sharper point on it: If you don’t have a profile on LinkedIn, you’re nowhere.”

via How LinkedIn will fire up your career – Mar. 25, 2010.

Wendy’s Note:

I am a little biased to the writer’s point of view in this article as a trainer for Integrated Alliances on LinkedIn and other social media tools.  LinkedIn as a business networking site has really gained momentum in the past 6 months. I would guess that it aligns with the increase in unemployed professionals across the country.

I run a couple of groups on LinkedIn, one for Alumni of the University of Rhode Island (my alma mater).  In the past 3-4 months I have an average of 20 – 80 people joining my group each week.  So while it is true that for your online reputation management and job search you should be on LinkedIn, I would recommend that you be on this — or any other business networking site– with a complete profile that is written with keywords in mind.

First impressions demand a complete social media profile

First impressions are created when anyone looks at your profile.  If you are trying to build a solid network, how would it look with no picture, a generic, blase headline, and a one sentence past job and role descriptions?  Here’s a few tips for you to get started on cleaning up your LinkedIn profile

Picture – Use a basic headshot picture from any digital camera, no professional help needed.

  • A clean, white background is best.
  • Do not use group photos or logo’s. No one will know which one your are.
  • Upload up to a 4Mb file and the system has a cropping tool. The final picture is quite small – 80 x 80 pixels.

If you would like more advice on how to take a good profile photo consider this post on tips for headshots and photos

Headline – This is the most important section on your profile.  On LinkedIn this field defaults to current job title at current employer.  When you add or change the headline, it does not change the current job however.  Use interesting, compelling, targeted keywords to attract interest. This is critical in attracting people to click through from search listings.

  • Limited to 140 characters – use wisely.
  • Search LinkedIn for the job title you are interested and consider who shows in the result page.
  • Use the Google keyword tool if you don’t know what terms to use that fit your job interests.

Summary – Think of it as a brochure and a business Bio. Begin with how helpful you are to others, make people want to help you in return.

  • Only include current and relevant information as this is a high-level overview.
  • This is not an historical area unless the history remains part of the current and future.
  • Formatting is limited to ALL CAPS, some special keyboard characters (~ > | #) and symbols that can be pulled in from Word (see above).
  • You get 2,000 characters (about 2/3 of a printed page) to work with.

Specialties – While the Summary section is like a brochure, with complete sentences and fancy formatting, the Specialties section is a place that resembles a list – a list of keywords like in a Search Engine sense.

  • Create a list of keywords, then look at the variations of these words and then look at synonyms and variants of the synonyms (see below).
  • You have 500 characters to work with (about 2 paragraphs).

Experience (Work History) – What to include? How far to go back? What to say? The Best Practice is to include every employer since college. This creates more opportunities for you to create relationships with others.

  • If you had multiple positions at a company, use the highest position held.
  • Do NOT simply copy/paste in data from a resume.
  • Use years only, no months needed.
  • You get lot’s of space, 2,000 characters, so make use of it!

What to say? For each position, state the following:

  1. What does the company do?
  2. Who do they do it for?
  3. Where do they operate?
  4. What was your role?
  5. What made you special there?

You are competing with over 60,000 profiles on LinkedIn so do your utmost to make your profile get found in the crowd by recruiters, customers and vendors.

Do you have questions on how to improve your profile on LinkedIn?  Please ask in the comments section, or connect with me on LinkedIn and reference this post.  I will provide a free review and recommendation.

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The Art of Filming an Interview | Top One Report | In My Opinion

March 11, 2010 By 3 Comments
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“First and foremost, interviews are connected to credibility. We have been trained to think that if a person is interviewed about something, then they must have a special insight into the topic about which they’re being asked. In other words, if you’re worthy of an interview, you must know what you’re talking about. And do you realize that you can interview yourself? It’s quite common to see an interview on the nightly news that only shows the interviewee, and never the person asking the questions. Sometimes you don’t even hear the questions being asked. So instead of looking right at the camera, look off to the side and pretend to be answering someone’s questions. See how that could be good for selling something?”

via The Art of Filming an Interview | Top One Report.

In my opinion

If you are thinking about doing video interviews of yourself or your clients, this is a must read article.  I myself have been doing interviews of Wisconsin businesses who are using social media using my Flip Video camera.  My intent was to find more examples of business using social media and try to document the answers to the very questions being asked of me.

Breakfast and Video

The Social Media Breakfast Madison just had a great presentation by Requisite Video on video guidelines.  We talked about how to make choices when it comes to video.   Sandy Kallio one of the attendees was nice enough to provide a good recap of the event and I have added embellishments so please check out that post here: Do It Yourself Video | Requisite Video Speaks at SMB Madison

FaceBook Fan Page Ideas

Brandyn Olson , Requisite Video talked about Requisite Video’s  Facebook fan page being more active than his Website during the recent Social Media Breakfast Madison.  He also shared his strategy to spread content over Facebook and YouTube vs. pages hidden behind pages on the company Web site.

There is a strategy of posting video to different social sites.  There is a different appreciation of the narrative that should be placed in the specific social site context.  That strategy for posting to Twitter vs. LinkedIn vs. FaceBook vs. YouTube can really help the link follow and interest by your followers.

Wendy Soucie Consulting Facebook Fan Page - Youtube tab

Wendy Soucie Consulting Facebook Fan Page - Youtube tab

Some people don’t believe that FaceBook is the best place to upload your video. The more common approach is to upload to YouTube and link to FaceBook.  It means that you friends and Fans cannot easily find those videos again from the video page.  If you are posting your videos solely to FaceBook page, you should watch your Insights and track the activity.

In testing out this premise,  I found out that you can create a tabbed page with a third party YouTube plug-in.  It seems to be working OK so far on the Wendy Soucie Consulting FaceBook page.

How to measure the impact of video

The way to get new business is through networking and social media interaction. It’s up to you to decide what success looks like and begin to track the key factors that might drive new leads and revenue. Make sure that each video has a call to action at the beginning, middle and end.

  • Track total ecosystem numbers in all social spaces
  • Ask fans questions about video
  • Track comments
  • Track links and embeds
  • Track favorites
  • Track subscriptions
  • Track views
  • Track action by using landing pages for each social site on your “home”
  • Track marketing actions with track able phone numbers.

Through YouTube, you can see how long people are watching before they leave – meaning they might miss the call to action at the end.  This might clue you in to shorten up your videos and insert a call to action in the middle of the clip.

Consider having a script for the interview, to stay on message which can really help you be more organized.

When NOT to do it yourself.

  • When you’re not sure what results you want
  • When you’re not sure what your message is,
  • When your goals are not achievable with the tools and resources you have
  • When you’re branding yourself or your company.
  • When your time is worth more than the cost to hire a professional

Consider professional help for these opportunities to make a great first impression.

Please share your video experience and stories in the comments.

 

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Social Media Today | The State of the Twittersphere 2010 | In My Opinion

March 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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The state and future of Twitter is passionately debated as users and industry pundits explore whether or not the platform and the relationships that connect one another are in danger of slowing or worse, regressing. Over the last year, Twitter experienced its most phenomenal growth to date, fueled by the adoption of the communication network by highly visible and influential personalities that attracted legions of new users to establish one-to-many and ultimately many-to-many connections. But, then the meteoric ascent practically leveled-off…

via Social Media Today | The State of the Twittersphere 2010.

In preparation for an upcoming workshop on Twitter for Business 201, I will be watching for important information and blog posts offered by the thought leaders in social media. Brian Solis, in this post, is assessing the latest research and results from HubSpot on Twitter trends.  As you look at the latest numbers, consider my Twitter for Business post in January that talked about  Gartner and the Trough of Dillusionment coming with social media.

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