Dance With Strangers

Last year at SXSW a few of us had a little fun with a game we call B.S. Bingo. You take a bingo card and you add the most popular “lingo” that you might hear during an event like SXSW, specifically the Interactive portion. Below is the 2010 version, enjoy and remember it is all in fun. Big thanks to so many of you on Twitter/Buzz who helped populate this year’s SXSWi bingo card:

Download the SXSWi Bingo Card.

From time to time I’m asked about social media guidelines for a company. Typically the person is putting something together and an executive has quite smartly stated that the employees need some guidelines. Now the original statement they made may have even said the dreaded “r” word, but either way the goal here is pretty straight forward. Or at least it should be. Your ultimate goal in creating social media guidelines is:

To produce a thorough but easily readable document that provides all employees a practical guide on how to interact within the context of social networks realizing that they are employed by said company.

Let’s break those down a bit further.

Thorough

• The social media guidelines should include as much of what people SHOULD be talking about as what they SHOULD NOT be talking about.
• The guidelines should take into account all facets of social media ranging from blogging and Twitter to posting online photos, audio clips and geo-location services.
• The guidelines should have some language approved by your legal department, but it should also be vetted through HR, sales, marketing, PR, exec leadership and others. This is a document for the entire company.

Easily Readable

• This may read as “short” to you, but that is not necessarily the case. It could also mean it is designed well or broken into well thought out chunks.
• Social media guidelines should be easily accessible to all employees.
• You do not have to publish your social media guidelines for the whole world to see. It is not frowned upon, but don’t think you have to reveal everything to everyone.
• Think about providing your guidelines in other formats such as video, audio or cheat-sheets to tack to cubicle walls.

Practical Guide

How to Interact

• Be respectful
• Be honest
• Be helpful

Social media guidelines are not rocket science, but they should provide people with a clear guide on how to participate in social media.

Thanks to Jim Storer for the inspiration needed for this post.

The other day I got an email from Pam O’Neal (my Vice President of Marketing, for those of you new to our adventures here) telling me to check out an article in Washington Technology on using social media to connect to the top contractors, agencies and influential companies in the government space. Not only was Pam pointing out the article as a resource for us at BreakingPoint, but also how the author used LinkedIn at the end of his article.

Mark Amtower, the author, is a B2G marketing consultant and his resolution for 2010 was to be connected to at least one person, preferably three, at each of the top companies listed by Washington Technology by the end of March. Aggressive, most certainly. But Mark is a smart man obviously because he understands how to harness the interconnectedness of social media. Just head to the end of the article and presto, a hyperlink to Mark’s LinkedIn profile.

Nothing amazing at this point though, right? The magic actually didn’t happen until I connected with Mark on LinkedIn, that is when the addition of resourceful content, as usual, made it’s mark.

Within minutes of connecting with Mark there was a personalized response to me in my inbox. How do I know it was personal and not a really great form response? Pam had connected with Mark about an hour before and the emails were completely different. Nice touch. But here comes the move that I found to be brilliant; two invites to join groups that Mark had set up on LinkedIn, both extremely focused and full of resources.

Mark had gone from a random contact to a source of information in minutes and someone I was really looking forward to talking with and probably talking with about his services. Ultimately that was his goal through his resolution and he is making it happen by using some of the social media principles we have discussed here on the blog. But let’s rehash:

1. Be Accessible–Include links to where people can find you.
2. Integrate Social Media–Make sure you are integrating social into your byline articles, events, emails, etc.
3. Be Personable–There is a strong connection built quickly with personal communication.
4. Provide Resources, Not Promotions–Mark didn’t push me to a website that touted his skills, he introduced me to groups that can help me with my job.

Content is king and social media is the way to spread the word. Let’s all use Mark’s example as a social media best practice, whether for B2C, B2B or B2G.

Oh, and you can connect with me on LinkedIn too.

Hat tip to Pam O’Neal who found what seems to be a new advertising opportunity for Google search? Notice how when you start to put search terms in you get the regular drop down of results, but the first one is in instant link. Is this paid?

eMarketer had a nice recap today on two new studies of spending outlook for B2B marketers in 2010. First was BtoB Magazine’s updated look at marketing spend in 2010 and the second was a survey by Visible Technologies and SiriusDecisions. Both had some interesting points that stuck out to me immediately:

• According to the BtoB Magazine results, 60% of the respondents said they will increase spending on “social media”.
• In the same BtoB Magazine survey 60% of respondents say they will use social networks to generate thought leadership, while 50% will use social networks to generate leads.
• The Visible Technologies/SiriusDecisions survey reported that 25% hope to use social media to generate awareness.
• Additionally in that survey 31% used web traffic/response rates to determine ROI on social media, while 12% used revenue to determine ROI.

Interesting and concerning from my point of view. Let’s start from the top.

60% of the respondents said they will increase spending on “social media”

In 2009 how much money did you spend on “social media”? In 2010 how much money do you plan to spend on “social media”. Excluding salaries, if you answered anywhere above $1 you are spending too much on social media. The reason is simple; social media is not an item to be bought or sold, rather it is a strategy of communication and engagement within marketing, as well as throughout your enterprise. Certainly there are tools that you can buy that help you with social media, but those are tools to use across the board in communicating in a more social manner. These tools help proliferate marketing campaigns that are focused on lead gen, email, web and even direct marketing. Therefore the spend number should fall into those categories and not one that determines social media spend. Don’t spend money on social media, spend money on marketing and communications tools, then proliferate social media into your communications DNA.

60% of respondents say they will use social networks to generate thought leadership, 50% to use them to generate leads

What? Hold on now. This is a study of B2B marketing leaders correct? I’m not arguing with the first number, that is a smart way to look at social networks. Your role, however, as a B2B marketer is to generate business and business comes from leads. 100% of all B2B marketers should be using, or at least figuring out how to use, social networks to generate leads. It might not happen, but if someone ever asks you what your primary goal is for any B2B marketing campaign, lead generation better enter the equation.

25% hope to use social media to generate awareness

This stat stumped me more than any other, and unfortunately I do not have access to the full report so I’m working a bit blind. However, if you look at the list of reasons why B2B companies use social media the “generate awareness” garners the most at 25%, followed by customer engagement, analyst/influencer engagement, market products, monitor and respond, competitive tracking and other. What is missing in this list? Lead generation and/or revenue building! I’m not disagreeing with all the other reasons, they are certainly needed, but how do you not at least have lead generation as one of the main reasons you would use a social media marketing strategy?

31% use web traffic/response rates to determine ROI on social media, while 12% use revenue to determine ROI

Again, revenue should be used much more than 12% of the time to determine ROI of social media. Let us reiterate that social media is a communications strategy within your marketing campaigs, and the vast majority of marketing campaigns you run should have a revenue goal attached. Therefore it is one of the only sure fire ways to measure ROI, and truly the only way that your CEO wants to see it represented. As for web traffic/response rates, I’m also surprised to not see this a bit higher. Perhaps it was the wording of the question and the fact that most good marketers now realize that web traffic means little to nothing, whereas web activity and analysis is what is truly important.

Surveys and poll numbers can be shaped however you want them to be shaped, obviously, but some of the numbers that came out of these studies certainly see the recognition of social media as a certifiable strategy. The challenge in 2010 is going to be educating people that it is a strategy, that it can bring in certifiable revenue and that you can truly measure the ROI of your social media strategy.

Perhaps you are sitting in your office right now catching up on your RSS feeds and looking forward to a nice dish on B2B Marketing or social media marketing or Twitter marketing…alas, I will disappoint you on this day. Do not fret however, because you are about to get an enormous benefit for reading this post, this picture of me:

Oh sure it was a long time ago and fortunately a few pounds shed since and perhaps I was dressing up for Halloween (I wasn’t), but that was the sweetest stache I ever did grow…until this month. During November I’ll be participating in Movember. Instead of writing my own description I’m stealing from the captain of our follical foraging team, Aaron Strout:

The essence of Movember is for gents to grow a mustache during the month of November for the purpose of raising money and increasing awareness in the name of “Changing the Face of Men’s Health.” The 30 second video below gives a good description…

OK, thanks Aaron, now we are back. I’m really excited about this opportunity since I’ve written in the past about my own family history with Cancer and most importantly raising money to fight Cancer. Could there be anything better than raising money for a worthy cause and having an excuse to grow a mustache? The answer is yes actually. Doing it as part of Team Austin and facing off against many of our old pals, many of them area actually old, in Boston.

Now you are saying to yourself, “Kyle is so amazing and really, really handsome with a mustache, plus, I hate Cancer too! How can I help?”

Great thoughts reader, and I appreciate the compliment. There are a few ways to help out:

1. Join our team and help us raise money.
2. Donate to our team (we’ll take any amount – $1 up to whatever you feel comfortable with, our end goal is $20,000!).
3. Pass the good word along about what we’re doing via tweets, Facebook updates and blog posts.

Reposted with permission from Stagira Inc. and Jason Stoddard:

Community Management FTW! (extending the conversation from the Ubiquity Marketing unSummit)

Join us for a Webinar “flashcast” today at 3:00 pm CST Community Management FTW! Registration

Aaron Strout and Kyle Flaherty

The boys from bean town and recent transplants to the Live Music and Social Media Capital of the World, Kyle Flaherty, Director of Marketing at BreakingPoint Systems, and Aaron Strout, CMO of Powered Inc. do a “re-do” on their panel from last week’s Ubiquity Marketing UnSummit on Community Management. During this 45 minute webinar, they’ll cover the “do’s” and “don’ts” of community building. We’ll also leave some time to harass Aaron and Kyle for the RedSox trailing the Yankees for the division championship, live “chat” questions, and attendee participation.

Title: Community Management FTW!

Date: Friday, September 11, 2009

Time: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM CDT

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:

Community Management FTW! Registration

URL shortening tools are a godsend for those of us who have been curtailed to a 140 character limit in life, saving valuable space on Twitter and other social networks. Size, however, is really not the most important element of the URL shortening tool, especially not for B2B marketers. Instead you need to be looking at it’s impact on your search engine optimization (SEO) and it’s level of analytics for measurement purposes. Ultimately you can use short URLs to boost your SEO and measure lead generation, the key is in the features provided and knowing what to look for out of your URL tool.

URL Shortening and SEO
Effective B2B SEO must be a passion and the way in which you dictate your URLs can go a long way in helping you optimize your key word. Check out what I can do when using BudURL:

Custom URL

In this case I’m minimizing a URL from the BreakingPoint blog and attaching our most important keyword to the short URL. Now whenever this URL is shared it will attach itself to our keyword and redirect to a page that has been optimized for that keyword. Although this is a win for SEO, it also helps you tell people more quickly where your short URL is going to take them if they click. This is becoming more important as we see malicious activity around short URLs. Use descriptive words to customize your URL in order to give you a SEO boost and help the people you are trying to reach.

Additionally in the realm of SEO and short URLs the choice to perform a 301 permanent redirect (versus the more typical 307 temporary redirect) can be very helpful. Again, BudURL:

301 redirects are better for SEO and actually Page Rank because search engines will assume that the destination URL will not be altered and they may actually cache the URL. On the negative side however it may also be cached by proxy servers and end up messing with your overall analytics, specifically click counts. The nice thing about BudURL is that they allow me to choose 301 or 307. Most of the time I use 301 redirects, since the page is not going to change and SEO is critical. However, I do use 307 once in a while for special campaigns that I know are for a limited time and therefore I want more accurate data around click counts. The key is to have the option and choose what is right for you, rather than simply using a generic service that offers you no choice.

Short URLs and the Power of Measurment
The beauty of services like BudURL is that they provide a plethora of data around click-through, IP address, browsers and more. Combine that with your web analytics and back-end it with your CRM system and you have a very powerful tool. Recently one of the web analytics packages we use, GetClicky, launched their own URL shortening service. The company even joked on their blog that this seemed a bit crazy since there are hundreds of options out there already. However, using a Clicky.me URL I not only get the custom URL option as before, it integrates completely into my web analysis dashboard and I can dive into individual short URLs:

Now I can see not only how many folks clicked on the link, but how much time they spent on the site, average actions, what search term they used to find the link, what site referred them and more. When you scroll down you also see each individual IP address AND all the action those folks took on the site, including if they reached any of your business goals. Ultimately we have back ended the process into SalesForce.com and can track the success of short URLs on our business.

They may be tiny, but short URLs are a highly powerful B2B marketing tool when you know what to look for out of your service.

My friend Bryan Person asked me to guest host on his DailyBoo and I dove at the opportunity, mainly to show off my radio pipes, but also because I’ve become a big fan of AudioBoo. Here is what I had to say about Bing:

Thoughts on AudioBoo?

Monday Microsoft officially introduced us all to Bing. Although overshadowed by Google Wave, Bing is a slick search engine with a lot of features I’m digging. Things I think I like thus far:

• For starters, it is super fast, at least until it indexes everything on the Interwebs.
• The SERPs are slick, allowing you to mouse over results and get a quick glimpse at the page.
• You have more options when searching video and images, including filtering them by size, layout, even just by headshots (versus those full body kind).
• It is also indexing things a bit differently, for example on Google my name brings you my blog, on Bing it shows my LinkedIn page.

And this is why Bing is important for you, especially since they reportedly had 6% of search share before it was even officially launched. The results you have come to expect from Google, Yahoo and even Live are now different in Bing. What if you had been optimizing for “guitar picks”? On Google InTuneGP has the number one slot with their custom picks, while Bing has them second. But take a look at zZounds, who jump from 8th on Google to 3rd on Bing. That is above the fold, critical for any company, particularly a consumer company.

This discrepancy is critical and something you must be doing with all your keywords IMMEDIATELY. The reason is two-fold:

1. Words that you have been optimizing for Google may not be appearing in the same place as Bing and action may need to be taken.
2. Competitive keywords that were difficult to optimize for on Google may be easier right now on Bing, not to mention cheaper if you go the PPC route.

It is always fun to review all the bloggers talking about what is good, or most likely bad, about a new search engine. But it is important to put on your marketing cap and make sure all of your hard work in SEO is being realized on Bing and take advantage by getting a leg up in understanding this new player.