Dance With Strangers

When I think of a resource for B2B social media I think of Jeff Cohen and Kipp Bodnar because, well, they run Social Media B2B. Not many folks know what us B2B marketers are up against when it comes to integrating social media, but having read their blog and spent time with them both I always leave the conversation with new ideas and inspiration.`

Therefore I was really thrilled when Jeff asked me to sit (actually stand) down for an interview during SXSWi and I wanted to share:

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.

Linkedin in is a powerful tool for B2B sales enablement, engagement and prospecting. This is a presentation given to our global sales force at BreakingPoint on how to use the capabilities of LinkedIn to move from being an online resume to online resource.

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?

What is the one habit you can’t kick? You have one; at LEAST one. Want to know one of mine? I have to drink two cups of coffee in the morning and then one diet Coke with lunch and then one more coffee at 4pm. There you go, I’ve included a habit with my obsessive compulsive disorder. Habits come in a variety of flavors, ranging from innocent to life-threatening.

Habits are often placed in a negative light, and in most cases rightfully so. Yet as a B2B marketer one of your goals is to create habit-forming campaigns in order to lead generation and cultivation. Why do you use drip email? Why do you execute webcasts on a monthly basis? Why are advertising buys predicated on daily, weekly or monthly runs? The list goes on and on, but ultimately you should be planning out your activities so that you can take advantage of the natural habit behaviors of humans, which I assume your customers are ultimately, until the robots take over.

The first time I came across this concept was after reading Habit: The 95% of Behavior Marketers Ignore, a terrific look at how marketers ignore this natural human instinct. Using habit-based marketing techniques is more than simply throwing out materials on a regular basis. Let’s look at five keys to creating habits through your marketing in order to generate more and more qualified leads.

1. Be Regular–put out content on a regular basis.
2. Be Different–use different platforms to put out the content, not everyone likes eMail and not everyone knows what RSS can do.
3. Be Consistent–your company voice should have a consistency throughout the different content and throughout the year.
4. Be Creative–encourage resourceful design to make emails easier to read, use audio/video to make more personable, etc.
5. Be Useful–don’t put our content for the sake of the first four points above. Before you send anything out ask, “Will this help my customers?”.

It’s time to introduce habitually good marketing to your audience.

The two tools I could not live without, or at least when it comes to my Twitter, are TweetDeck and Seesmic. Both appeal to me for different functionality and I use TweetDeck for @kyleflaherty and Seesmic for @breakingpoint. The main reason I like both applications are their ability to help me build personalized lists of people I follow, even before Twitter lists became a Twitter web UI feature. For example, in TweetDeck you will find six lists I have built:

1. Good Friends
2. Marketers I Trust
3. Colleagues
4. Boston Sports
5. Foodies
6. Austin Peeps

Building these lists allows me to follow more people and focus on certain topics, but it has also expelled any thought of visiting the main Twitter site. Nor will I check my full list of people that I follow since I don’t like to give up that real estate in TweetDeck. And herein lies one of the pitfalls of lists (whether within Twitter or in an app), because once I build those lists I rarely add new people, since I’m only looking, well, at those lists. I love my lists, they are full of great information and great people. But with your lists you don’t know what you don’t know.  My lists were missing people. People that I knew.

It finally hit me during a run. Yesterday as I was hitting my stride on a long distance jaunt I actually started thinking about Dave Fleet. Now, I’ve never met Dave personally, but we have had several conversations on Twitter and our respective blogs over the years. I’ve always liked the way Dave thinks and how he challenges people consistently, but in a productive method. Dave is a self-described “running nut”, hence why the run jogged my memory (sorry, had to), and I realized at that moment that I had forgotten to add Dave onto any of my lists in TweetDeck! As soon as I was back at the house I remedied this egregious error and realized I needed to go through my lists closely to make sure I’m not missing other folks like Dave. People who I have enjoyed talking with over the years and who teach me a great deal.

Here is how I’m going to do it:

1. Batch review my mentions (people who used @kyleflaherty) from 2007 and 2008.
2. Analyze trends to determine frequency of communications in order to find those I talked to the most.
3. Cross-reference this with my lists in Tweetdeck (now that they are interlinked with lists in the API).
4. Find the other Dave Fleet’s I’ve been missing.

Is this problem simply an element of my own lack of vision or something inherent in list building? Oh, and hey Dave, I have a few questions about stretching after a long run for you

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.

Conversation is defined, in many dictionaries, as the “informal interchange of thoughts, information, etc., by spoken words; oral communication between persons; talk; colloquy”.

Communication is defined, in many dictionaries, as the “imparting or exchanging of information or news”.

Let’s agree that the definition of Conversation should change a bit, to at least include “written words” along side those that are spoken.

Now, a question for you.

On Twitter, do you have Conversations or Communications with people?

On Facebook, do you have Conversations or Communications with people?

On eMail, do you have Conversations or Communications with people?

On the phone, do you have Conversations or Communications with people?