Posts Tagged ‘SocialTech’

After a mind-blowing October and November, I’m finally getting back to the Series on how to leverage Linkedin from an enterprise perspective. However, technically-speaking, the last post for ICMG was really along the same conversation. A popular post in terms of views, that post amplified the specific activities for a typical professional to influence and impact their professional environment. Yes, Online Reputation Management (ORM) and Organizational Voice (OV) are both REALLY BIG deals.

Speaking on eWOM at World Usability Day - funny image!

You can look at this enterprise topic from multiple angles. Two angles for sure are:

1. How do we as Clients, Partners, and Fans engage WITH the Brands we do business with?
2. How do we as Brands earn, foster, and build engagement FROM our Clients, Partners, and Fans?

I’d like to shine the light on the latter. Restated, what specific activities can we as the enterprise do to earn engagement and interaction from our Clients, Partners, and Fans, specifically within the Linkedin environment. And how will these efforts payoff in measurable ROI.

A note to readers. If I may be quite direct, as I’ve been saying for the last three years, “Lurking is Lame”. I’ll go further than that now – it’s quite unacceptable to consume only, never Comment, never Share, never add value. Here’s the thing: If you’re going to take the time to absorb content, and if you find it helpful, don’t you see how just walking away without contributing is a bit off? It would be like attending in person a session that someone put effort in to develop, and that you paid for in either time or money, finding value in it, and then simply walking out without even taking the time to acknowledge, stop and thank the speaker, perhaps grab a business card for follow-up, or asking a question or making a comment during the session. So please consider some sort of action – do something with the content you consume. At a bare minimum, if you like the post, Share it. It only takes a few minutes to add value. Make a habit of it. (Btw, that adds to YOUR ORM and OV, right???)

First, what does it mean to “earn” engagement FROM our Clients, Partners, and Fans? I’ll use the analogy of the conference again. Suppose you are a new member of an association and you go to the first couple association meetings. At those meetings, you (and probably your boss) are so excited to be in the presence of all these new, targeted prospects, and driving so hard to justify the expense, that you go up to everyone you meet, introduce yourself, and immediately launch into a pitch about your products and services. So for two meetings in a row, you done nothing but “sell”. No listening to what others do, no volunteering to help the association in some way through your talents, no fostering conversations at the breakfast tables, instead “just sell baby”. Obviously an extreme example (though not really, I’ve seen this recently as I’m sure you have as well), but you get the point. If this were the case, would you reasonably expect anyone in the association to give you any positive props or mentions at any point at all? Probably not.

Now contrast that with the flip side. All you do is listen and volunteer and never mention exactly what you do. So everyone ‘Likes’ you but no one has any idea why you’re there or what you do. Also an extreme example on the other end of the spectrum. Also not appropriate.

Relative to the concept of ‘earned media’, the holy grail lies somewhere in between. That’s the goal, that’s the target. How do we do enough selling/marketing so that people know what we do and we stay top-of-mind for that function (and rank high in search along the way), but we also listen, help, and add value along the way? And what is that balance? I’ve heard it said that you can think of it in terms of a 10:1 ratio – 10 acts of added value for every 1 act of selling.

It’s critically important to understand this point. Earned media is/will be an essential element in the near future of sales and marketing.

What does “Earned Media” look like inside of Linkedin? Here are the spots to look for earned media and mentions. Once you understand the locations, and then combine that with the a for-mentioned concept of sales-versus-valueadd, you’ll quickly get the point. Again these are all Linkedin spots:

1. Company Page Recommendations
2. Company Page Status Updates
3. Individual Recommendations
4. Individual Status Updates
5. Group Mentions
6. Answers Mentions
7. Company Buzz Mentions
8. Twitter-integration Mentions
9. Of course, Employee Mentions
10. Employee Activities

These are a few of the hot spots. If you know any others, please Comment.

So what to you do with these and where does earned media come into play?

Company Page Recommendations:

Obvious caveat: The brand must do a great job in adding value and servicing its clients. “Astroturfing”, or getting your brother-in-law to say something nice about you in spite of poor service, inflated prices, etc., will be discovered and exposed, and will further exacerbate the original problems. Trust that.

Sample Linkedin Product Recommendation on a Company Page (click to enlarge)

Once you have the Company profile in place on Linkedin, be sure to add the tabs that allow you to feature your products and/or services. At that point, in these early days of Linkedin, it’s a simple matter of asking some of your Clients, Partners, and Fans to hit the page and make a Comment. Here’s a great example from HubSpot. Notice the inherent Linkedin functionality associated with the Recommendation and how it reinforces the relevance and influence of the Recommendation. Notice also that there is a Share button on the page. Did you know that brand advocates are 83% more likely to Share a page, all the more so when they’ve engaged with the content in some way, put their personal virtual fingerprints on the page? Do you see how these things work together to create earned media and viral marketing? (see more stories on this here)

Company Page Status Updates:

We all know that personal Status Updates (aka Shares on your Linkedin Homepage newsfeed) have the potential of being seen by your network. Going further, most know that if your network Likes or Comments on something YOU shared, THEIR network has the potential of seeing it and sharing it – and so on. (I saw one guy who posted a bet he made with his boss that his boss would give him $1 for every Like and Comment he got on a post about the utility of Linkedin. At that point, the guy had the usual couple hundred Connections. Well, his update went viral inside Linkedin. I’m not sure I remember exactly what I last saw or where it sits today, but after a few weeks the guy’s boss owed him SEVERAL THOUSAND bucks.)

As with personal, the same functionality applies to Company Status Updates. The Status Updates are obviously not earned media, but Likes, Comments, and Shares of those updates are. When the Status Updates appear in Followers Newsfeeds, if people are fans of the brand and appreciate the content of the item, there’s a good chance they will Likes, Comments, and/or Shares, especially if they’ve advanced in their Social maturity beyond the previously mentioned lurking stage. Those actions then become the earned media, the holy grail of Social Media Marketing. Nuf said.

Well, that’s all I have time for at this point. I’ll continue the dialog on the finer points of the other seven items next time.

Meantime, I’m greatly looking forward to ICMG first week of February, PIMA the next week, perhaps the ACT Conference, perhaps SWSX in March, and a VERY exclusive Enterprise Social Tech day-long Boot Camp for C-level insurance executives, also in March in Charlotte – a busy Q1.

Again, please Like, Comment, and Share. Let’s see if I can earn some media myself! Thanks in advance. Merry Christmas!!! Emmanuel.

What do YOU want to know? REALLY.

A bit of background: I remember when I first started using Linkedin in 2007. It was shortly before the PIMA meeting in Cancun, Feb. 2008. It sticks in my mind because I spoke to many people about Linkedin at the meeting. I remember that the predominant reaction around the industry and with my network at large was a natural sense of skepticism. Some companies were a little more intentional, blocking Linkedin on their servers as part of a broader approach to Social Technologies. Many people brushed Linkedin off as a waste of time for the gainfully employed, useful only for job seekers and recruiters. In fact, some of these attitudes still persist four years later. I heard this comment just this month at the PIMA conference at the Broadmoor by one of the speakers. “I don’t really use Linkedin – I’m not job-seeking…”

Fast forward to today and the prevailing sentiment seems to be, “I’m on it, get lots of invitations to connect, some from people I don’t really know, most I accept, but I don’t really know what to do with it. I’m in a few Groups but don’t really check-in very often. Should I upgrade to the Premium version???…”

In the meantime since 2008, I have migrated from an e-commerce sales guy to an independent Social Tech consultant, facilitator, and speaker, primarily focused on the insurance vertical, with secondary emphases on coaching sales organization on how to leverage Linkedin and Twitter. I also am building a line of business helping Cleveland-based companies, across industries, with Social Media Marketing strategies and tactics.

All that to say, as a part of my profession, I’m paid to know more about this stuff than the average professional. I also use it continuously for my own marketing and sales efforts.

Thus I thought it might be useful to share some of my learnings and help move our collective use of Linkedin to the next level. How? Let’s “crowdsource” both the questions and answers.

What’s in it for you to participate?

1. First and foremost, learning. The more you engage, think, and write on the topic, the more knowledge transfer happens.
2. Second, you can Share the discussion with your network – and thereby help them as well.

Part One: What do you want to know?

Think about your business objectives. What are you trying to accomplish professionally today? Really.

A suggestion: Before you look at the other questions in the Comments, think of your own top 1-3 questions. Then add your questions to the list, regardless of whether someone else already asked about your issues. That way we’ll get a great list, including redundancies indicating added importance to those topics.

Above all, please don’t LURK – add value.

Oh yeah, it may be tempting, but please perhaps check yourself from answering the questions in this round. I’d like to curate the questions and then open up the flood gates for answers in Part 2 – a little more organized approach from the left-brain side of things.

Thanks in advance for participating. Ask a question in the Comments below (and perhaps subscribe to the blog or the Comments), then copy the link, post it on Linkedin or Twitter, and ask your network to ask a question as well. Let’s crowdsource this. I know you’ll be pleased with the results.

Thanks again.

I’m publishing this post from inside the all-day Executive Management Session at the DAIAB Conference at Rehoboth Beach, DE. The session lays out like this:

Morning – Baseline understanding on Social Technologies

• 90 minutes: What it means and how to leverage it
• 90 minutes: Web sites, Blogs and Twitter

Afternoon – Tactical How-to’s on Primary Business Social Tech

• Measuring Results
• Linkedin
• Facebook
• FourSquare
• Mobile
• Viral Media and Video

Bonus, time-permitting: RSS, Alerts, Analytics

This group is focused on the Property & Casualty side of the insurance space. The Association members are regional and local agencies selling both commercial and personal lines products. Several niche insurance companies provide the products. And of course several business partners support the environment with various business operation and marketing services. Good people working hard to provide valuable risk-management services to the business community. An example: insurance products specifically designed for the coastal environment – flood, hurricane, that kind of thing. Always fun meeting new people, learning about new applications and products, and seeing how Social fits in.

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A few learnings to share from a recent all-day Social Media Marketing strategy session with an insurance company and two pilot participants:

1. Doing a Social Media Marketing pilot is always a great way to “test before you INvest”.
2. Extremely helpful on several levels for the insurance company marketing folks to invite the compliance folks into the session. Why? That’s a subject for another post.
3. Insurance marketing partners are chomping at the bit to start using Social.
4. Our “Ideation Session” turned up several really solid Social Media Marketing opportunities to chose from.
5. Good decision for the company to use marketing dollars already in the budget to fund the pilot. Takes the issue of money right off the table. Pretty small investment in the grand scheme of things.
6. A lot of the technologies needed for the pilots are already in place and can be reused, for example on Facebook pages, with minor variations.
7. Many others but confidentiality prevails.

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Next week: Another all-day Social Media Marketing strategy session with a large insurance agency.

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I’m also attending Scott Klososky’s Social Tech Bootcamp in Chicago. Can’t wait to see all the new Social Tech stuff he’s been working on.

Btw, if you’d like to collaborate on a Social Tech Bootcamp for your company or for your clients or prospects, reach out to me. I can guarantee it to be an extremely effective use of time any way you skin it.

A few recent pics:

Sunrise at the Gifford Pinchot State Park after visiting Gettysburg

A coiled-up Delaware Black Snake glaring back from the marsh

My golfing partner grabbed the thing – amazing to see.

Coming right at the camera! Yikes!

Hey, I just found another use for Blogging! It’s a productive use of time at 6am during a windstorm power failure when the only thing you have is battery power on the laptop – no internet, no lights, no coffee – can’t decide which is worse?!?!

So I read and shared this article this week. My guess is many of my colleagues in the insurance space will read it, gently cross their arms, lean back in their chairs, and think, “Yep, this is what I’ve been saying all along…and exactly why I haven’t gotten into all that Facebook, Blogs and Social Media stuff. It’s all a fad.”

Yes, we ARE in a bubble. But here’s the thing (and I’ll ask the crowd of readers to Comment their take below):

The article makes a sound analogy with e-Commerce during the ’98-2000 era. There certainly was a bubble and a burst. Dot-com’s were getting huge amounts of money with no revenue model, etc. etc. The crash hit, many of those companies faded out, etc. Don’t need to rehash all that.

But what came out of all that? Solid e-commerce platforms by solid companies. Not sure what the latest numbers are, but billions of dollars are running through the internet as companies put their products on Web sites and buyers buy them. Again, no need to justify and explain all that anymore – common sense and acceptable.

Why did e-commerce outlive the Bubble? I’ll argue the following. What do you think?

Individually – I’ll list three. Please add yours.

IMHO, it really boils down to Fundamental Human Behaviors

e-Commerce efficiencies with time and money – Didn’t people see pretty quickly that they could browse for books and music on Amazon.com faster than they could in the store? Didn’t Google make it incredibly easy to find pretty much anything you want and compare prices, vendors, choices, user ratings, etc.? [And now we have all of that on our smart-phones? And now we have things like Groupon, Web specials, discounts for Fans, check-in savings on FourSquare?]

Sharing – Didn’t people love to tell stories about what happened to them after they bought the products? Give advice to others in similar circumstances? Make recommendations? Comment from the peanut gallery? Be the arm-chair quarterback? Share uses? Rant about injustices? Solve problems? [Back then it was mass emails and Fwd Fwd Fwd, right? Now it’s Facebook and YouTube, etc.]

Helping – Didn’t e-Commerce make it easier for people to help each other? A fundamental behavior? Why do drivers flash their lights at cars approaching a speed trap?

Corporately – I’ll list five. Please add yours.

1. Industry leadership – Did the early adopters of e-Commerce realize long-term benefits as their systems matured through trial and error before the rest of the pack? When they figured out ways to do things better, faster, cheaper; to become known as an innovator in the industry; to develop ecosystems that snow-plowed the road for the industry, was there value in that?
2. Competitive advantage – Did companies with better e-Commerce platforms do better in the 2000s than the competition? And how are they positioned today in 2011? What were the difference makers? How about those that did things in-house versus outsourcing to specialists? Pro’s and con’s on that to be sure, but if we limit the thoughts to the legit, real-deal outsourcing companies…
3. Cost savings – Netnet, now that we’re 10 years down the road and e-Commerce platforms are in place, are cost structure differences yielding gains compared to the 80s and 90? Shopping? Distribution? Inventory management? etc?
4. Mass marketing – Did e-Commerce realize the potential for companies to immediately get new products out to wide bases of constituents? How about selling overstocks? What else? And now, what about this concept called “Revenue on Demand”?
5. Personalization – How about letting the consumer design their own product? Colors, features, accessories, timelines, etc.? Of course often for either a fee or for competitive advantage, right?

What are some other advantages of mature e-Commerce platforms?

Interesting side note: As I mentioned previously, I heard an insurance executive last summer say from a podium, “When will e-Commerce realize its potential?” I wanted to stand up and shout, “When you start doin’ it right, buddy.” Funny how that exec about 3 months later was canned. Oh, and 6 months later his Linkedin profile still lists him in the CEO role. Doh! I swear……. (I’ll save him the embarrassment of linking to it.)

So are we in a Social Media bubble? Absolutely. Will it burst? Yep. Then what? To answer the question in the original E-Consultancy blog…

“We’ll get back to reality and figuring out how to do Social Tech right like we shoulda’ been doing in the first place.”

My take? Social Tech is a specialization like anything else? It’s a discipline that must be mastered and kept up with? As to marketing? There’s a host of things that need to be done urgently today? If we don’t keep up, we WILL be left behind – just common sense. How costly will falling behind be? Again, my opinion, that seems to depend on customer switching costs and your competitors. Don’t underestimate the power of consumer ratings and recommendations, the viral nature of the social Web. Don’t be complacent. Change never stops.

What do you think? Good use of an hour to write this post? Any of this make sense? Please comment. Certainly link back to your site, your blog, or other writings. Please share with your network, ask them to comment, and see if we can get some of your thought-leader friends to pipe in.

Bubble or not, the critically important questions seem to be: Are there long-term utilities in Social Technologies? Does Social Tech align with core human behavior? And will early corporate adopters (caveat: who do it Social RIGHT) have long-term competitive advantage?

Running in between PIMA and ICMG with tons of follow-up from the former while getting organized for the latter. Geesh! All the while, Cleveland and the Midwest is getting pummeled by “snow-pocalypse”.

Future note to keep me accountable: At the closing session, I asked several attendees the question, “What is the one thing you would say to someone who wasn’t here regarding all the innovation content we heard?” And then, “What is the one BIG barrier to innovation that we must overcome?” Really looking forward to sharing the content with you.. very interesting mosaic of comments. Look for that next week.

In the meantime, a few thoughts collected real-time. Curious for reader comments. Btw, if you are serious about Social Technologies, especially as they relate to Innovation, Mobile, Viral Marketing, e-Word-of-Mouth, etc., I’m meeting with a few clients at the Scott Klososky Enterprise Social Tech Bootcamp in Dallas in early March. I’ve got one open spot left.

Seismic changes in this age of the consumer, disruptive technologies….

“Innovation is a necessity.”

Unknown and unarticulated needs

Culture of failure is important

No such thing as B2B anymore – just the relative distance from the consumer.

…the things that didn’t work… “We lucked into innovation…”

“Big Slow Staid Bureaucratic”
good descriptive of our industry

“All the innovation is already there; you just have to unleash it.”

Mobile is changing everything – right in our customers hands

recognize failure “a lot” – words of encouragement

Lessons Learned
#1 Solve for Ideas
Innovation process… THEN product development process
#2 Unpeel you Onion – innovation is already there…

“disruptive innovation: product or utility that does less and cost less”

Huffington – embrace the new economy, embrace the link economy

Extreme Affinity – LA City Employees Association – referral from American General

“Insurance wasn’t enough”

Captivating and compelling use of innovation. Gobs and gobs of take-aways…

Pictures

PIMA hashtag search

Next Meeting – The Broadmoor

Meantime – Brand project, continuing the discussion on Linkedin, lots of client engagements, Innovation

What was your take-away from the conference? Good for you? What about some of these concepts? If you weren’t there, feel free to ask questions. Perhaps the reader crowd can bring clarity. Please Comment below. Thanks in advance.