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Working with social media | Thoughts on Blogs | Week October 30, 2009

November 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Social Media ROI
Image by Intersection Consulting via Flickr

Activities and participation on the social web following Social Media Academy’s NCP Model.

To be or not to be… on a social network by loriruff in Ask an Expert, LinkedIn, Social Media

In regards to conversation about whether someone needed to invest his time (gain ROI) by participating in the LinkedIn community since he had such a strong referral network.

Lori, I had a similar conversation with a professional who got top notch referrals.  We had almost concluded that it wasn’t worth his time, when I asked him if he thought that his contacts would always be at their present jobs, or firms.  Would they be smart enough to leave with their outlook contacts? Have you ever left a job, only to begin the long process of re-entering business contacts from collected cards.

As an online location to collect your business associates, that allows the contact to updates his data, Linkedin can’t be beat.  Even if you do the bare minimum and you don’t need people to find you – it helps you have emails and contact data for your best contacts. The result was he had never thought about it this way.  And no, he had not recently backed up his outlook files.  He also tossed business cards after his assistant added them to Outlook.  He ended up creating a profile and had his admin, start sending invites so he could have a backup, web based location at the least.

Although there are several online contact databases, none have the added functionality of LinkedIn.  Perhaps your contact should reconsider his profile on LinkedIn?

Using Social Media for B2B Marketing.

Linkedin Questions, Ellen Martin, Receptionist at Campbell & Chadwick PC

Innovative Marketing, PR, Sales, Word of Mouth and Buzz Innovators Group

In regards to a question on how can you can use social media to find and develop business contacts into clients for a professional services firm?

Ellen,
First understand the business goals of your firm, then do an assessment of the social ecosystem to see where the possible customers are and what they are talking about.  Build a strategy and action
plan after getting an understanding of the spaces and issues.  Only then can you figure out how to solve the problem, build a action plan and then select the right tools.  You may find that customer support is the best place to use social media that leads to leads for your firm.  Hitting marketing and sales too early without a clear understanding of how to participate in the social web can backfire on you.

Other steps would be part of the action plan along with resource allocation – time, personnel and budgets.

COMMERCIAL OVER-POSTING IS PROHIBITED, PERIOD!

Linkedin Group Social Media Marketing (with over 50,000 members)

In regards to Mike Crosson vigilant policing of spammers in the group. His policy is clear and I have included it in this post since I think it has great value for other group managers.

From Mike Crosson: Hello, everyone – there have been a number of people who have ignored the clear directive that spam and straight commercial messages are NOT appropriate for this forum. I have warned these people and banned two from the list as a result. Here are the simple common sense rules so that everyone gets real value out of our Social Media Marketing group:

1. You can post something you feel will benefit the group, even if it is somewhat self-serving or has reasonable costs associated with it. There will undoubtedly be a number of people who might
your product or service beneficial. What you CANNOT do is post the same thing over and over. That becomes spam and benefits no one.

2. Try to provide something of VALUE in every posting – a resource you have or found, a relevant article to a discussion, a presentation or research that is useful.

3. Be transparent and honest – a lot of very smart people are in this group and can see through flimsy or sales-y materials. We all benefit from sharing knowledge and resources, and respecting the value of people’s time.

Here’s to 2009, a great year for our business!

Cheers,
Mike Crosson

Here is my reply:

I have used this group and your techniques as a moderator on more than one occasion to showcase a great moderator and the type of group that is worthwhile.  I have used your suggestion to keep the same spammer out of two other groups I participate in.   Feels like a blog topic coming on.

However, face it, people have spammed email forever and continue to do it in spite of software to reduce it. So I am afraid that spamming social media is here to stay.  In fact it chokes up Twitter all the time.

That doesn’t mean we should stop these efforts and we need to continually remind ourselves and new users in our social ecosystems what is consider good and bad form and what we will allow in our groups that we can control.

Take out the light sabers and may the force be with us!

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Filed Under: Business Blogging, Reputation Management, Social Media Academy, Social Media Strategy, Thoughts on Blogs Tagged With: , , , ,

Challenges we face as leaders | Thoughts on Blogs Week of October 23, 2009

October 27, 2009 By 1 Comment

Participation on the social web following the Social Media Academy’s NCP Model.

What do you see as the biggest challenges for business leaders in the next 12 months.

LinkedIn Questions -Dan Paulson C level executive adviser.  CEO of InVision.

In response:

Corporate websites are doomed.  Buyers are not going to these sites for information. They are using online readers, social sites, product sites and forums to learn the “real story” and share reviews on products and services.
Leaders need to find ways for buyers to personally connect with you  while integrating them into your business. This allows you to establish lasting connections.

Leaders need to recognize that buyers (both consumers and B2B) have fundamentally changed their buying process. Therefore they must change the sales process.  Trust is the biggest issue.  Those suppliers who  are open and share information,  are active in marketplace, and engaged in community of professionals will standout and can be trusted sooner.

Having customer evangelists who are freely recommending your product and service based on their customer experience being outstanding is the most important thing to move you up the recommendation chain. Your goal should be to provide the best customer experience and engagement.

Your online presence should integrate with social sites in various forms.  Build your platforms across your organizations to integrate with the social web.

Does your company have a Social Media Policy for employees?

Social Media Marketing Group – LinkedIn Questions & Answers

Can employees blog about your company? Tweet about it? Can they RT something about the company that someone has already said?

In response:

I also agree with Ryan that social media policies and guidelines are helpful to both employees and senior management.  It provides the structure for employees to follow so they know when they are out of line.  It reassures senior management that they have escalation paths in place should conversations go haywire and it documents for legal reasons grounds for inappropriate actions.

I recently heard Lee Aase of Mayo Clinic speak and they have a policy statement on their blog.

I have started to see policy statements by social media professionals such as chrisbrogan.com that include disclaimers, linking policies, connection policies, and disclaimers.

Privacy Begins at Home.

Lee Aase on the use of Skype and various social media tools.

In response:

Lee, thanks for making yourself oh so human.When we see people from big organizations talking about using social media, its easy to assume that they know everything.

Its easy to be intimidated by the conversations that’s ongoing or in trying to start one yourself.

I appreciated the very real presentation you gave on your own humble beginnings recently in Madison WI for the AAF. It helps even to those of us firmly entrenched in the world of social media, It also helps us be creative with how we implement social media.

You provided great incentive to use Flip video for interviews and capturing content in new ways. So I did a video blog post while I was traveling to a soccer game in the car. I will try and be brave and post it today on my blog. Note to everyone, its easier to do this with some type of velcro on the dashboard so you don’t have to hold the camera.

Thanks again for the great presentation and for your blog and SMUG university.

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Filed Under: Business Blogging, Social Media Strategy, Thoughts on Blogs Tagged With: , , , ,
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