Guide to Choosing Social Media Tools

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I’ve recently worked with several companies that were trying to bring some order to their social media activities. I’ve found that most have the same problem: They’ve dabbled in blogs, Twitter and Facebook fan pages but after several months they lack traffic, followers and fans. They’re frustrated and confused. Wasn’t this supposed to be a cheap and easy way to build their brand and bring in sales?

Social media is cheap but it isn’t easy. With millions of bloggers and Facebook pages online, building visibility is a challenge that demands time. More importantly, it demands a strategy, and that’s where businesses usually don’t go far enough.

There’s nothing wrong with diving in and using the tools. In fact, I encourage experimentation. But before you invest significant time in social media, you need a plan. Here’s the four-stage process I walk then through.

Define the Objective – Social media tools are only tools. Without an underlying strategy, they have about as much benefit as a plumber’s wrench has to fixing a hole in the wall. Most business objectives demand a mix of online and offline tools, and social media may have little or no value. Start with the objective and work backwards.

Common business objectives range from building thought leadership to generating leads, cutting customer service costs and recruiting quality employees. Each demands different strategies and tools. If you start with the objective, the rest of the process is easier.

Identify Metrics – Here I steal shamelessly from measurement queen Katie Paine, who believes that any goal can be measured. In many cases, relevant metrics have nothing to do with the Internet. They can include yardsticks such as

  • Positive mentions in mainstream media outlets
  • Quantity of new job applicants;
  • Speaking invitations;
  • Reduction in help desk calls;
  • Improvements in Net Promoter Scores; and, of course
  • Increased sales.

Note that many of these examples have nothing to do with Web analytics. Friends, followers and fans have little value if they don’t achieve the business goal.

Don’t go overboard on metrics. Choose three or four that are meaningful to your goal and define standards of success, like a doubling of Facebook fans in a six-month period. Then revisit your progress every three months and adjust (or choose new metrics).

Define Tactics – How are you going to use online and offline channels to reach your goals? Consider all the options. For example, thought leadership may be enhanced by blogging and tweeting, but an equally effective strategy may be growing the quantity of speaking engagements or starting a local professional group. Consider location. The Internet provides a great way to increase international exposure but it may be of little help in growing visibility within your local geography. That goal may be better addressed by increasing activity in local trade associations or advertising on radio. Tactics are enabled by tools, so you need these plans in place before you start blogging or tweeting

Choose Tools – This is where many companies start their social media journey, but it really is where they should end it. Different tools are good for different purposes. for example, Twitter is an excellent news delivery vehicle while Facebook is better for creating a feedback loop. My book, Secrets Of Social Media Marketing, has a more complete selection grid. Also, many businesses are now learning how to use multiple tools in concert to magnify their impact.

Your tools may have nothing to do with the Internet. For example, starting a local chapter of a professional trade association or submitting speaking proposals to conference organizers can be a great way to network or build visibility. You can also combine off-line and online tactics, such as promoting an upcoming speech through the media while seeking interviews with prominent bloggers.

This is the basic framework I use for discussion, and I find that the structured approach helps focus my clients. When you really think about your business goals, it’s surprising to discover how many of the tactics come down to good old-fashioned person-to-person relationships. Online tools can certainly help there, but sometimes a phone call or a lunch meeting is worth 1,000 tweets.

Be Inclusive Or Be Irrelevant

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In my column in BtoB magazine this month I discuss the contrasting media relations styles of two giants of the Internet age: Google and Apple. The column focused specifically on their communications styles, but I believe the business tactics of these two starkly different but successful companies have bigger significance.

Google and Apple are diametrically opposed in many respects. Apple creates delightful experiences. Its products are proprietary, closed and self-contained, but people love using them because they not only work but seem to function the way humans expect. Apple is a technology company whose vision is rooted in human-friendly design.

Google’s vision is rooted in the potential of technology. The company produces an amazing array of products, ranging from mapping software to CAD design to medical records organizers. Google shares its ideas quite openly in public “labs” and is also prone to ending public experiments with little notice or explanation. Even its self-deprecating error messages are emblematic of the corporate culture, as if to say “So it didn’t work; we’ll make it better.”

The public-facing strategies these companies employ also couldn’t be more different. Apple holds its new product plans close to the vest and reveals them with fanfare at elaborate press conferences that generate months of media speculation. The company may only hold a couple of press conferences a year, but you can be sure they’re memorable.

Apple not only doesn’t use social media, it has actively litigated against bloggers who have revealed sensitive information. The strategy works well for Apple because its rabid base of fans is more than happy to indulge in speculative frenzy and drive awareness that no amount of advertising could buy.

In contrast, Google rarely holds press conferences. Most of its products are announced in a low-key style via blogs. Its developers and product managers work the long tail through one-on-one interviews and frequent speaking engagements. The company uses every social media outlet it can but shuns the media spotlight.

So Which Are You?

Is your company Apple or Google? Most businesses model their public personae on the Apple example. Their plans are shrouded in secrecy, access to executives is granted only to the top media and leaks are dealt with harshly out of fear that they could compromise the goal of being first to market. The theory is that the market is hungry for information, so it’s best to withhold news until it can have the greatest impact.

That strategy works for Apple but not for most businesses. Today, customers are swimming in information and if they don’t get insight about where you’re going, they simply move to someone else. Companies that build products behind closed doors risk becoming irrelevant because no one talks about them. What’s more, they lose the advantage of involving customers in a process that can not only make their products better but form the basis for a word-of-mouth marketing force.

How about being first to market? That benefit is vastly overrated. History has demonstrated that the only advantage of being an early mover is that it gives you the opportunity to make mistakes that others learn from. Apple’s sole first-to-market experience – the Newton – was also its most notable failure. The history of technology markets in particular is littered with businesses that created innovations that others later made successful.

In a world of plentiful information, the winners are those that do the best job of talking about their innovations before they reach the market. Prospective customers want to be involved in the process, and they punish those businesses that don’t indulge them. Look at the companies that are making headlines today and you’ll find nearly all of them have adopted an open and inclusive path to the market.

The Apples of the world are few and far between. Nearly everyone would like to be an Apple, but few will ever get the chance.

Social Media RFP Template Asks All the Right Questions

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As the social media gold rush has accelerated over the last two years,a lot of marketing consultants have signed up for a Facebook account, launched a Twitter stream and declared themselves to be social media experts. But knowing the basics of how to use the tools is nothing like knowing how to create and promote engaging content that attracts the constituents you need and deploy it in the right places.

Maggie FoxSocial Media Group of Dundas, Ontario (near Toronto) was creating social media campaigns long before they were fashionable. Founder Maggie Fox (right) is one of the sharpest strategists I know in this area. You don’t sign up clients like these unless you know your stuff. That’s one reason I asked her to contribute an essay to my latest book.

Last week, Social Media Group delivered a document into the public domain that any organization that’s evaluating marketing agencies in this realm should read. The Social Media Request for Proposal (SMRFP) template lists questions you can ask prospective agencies to separate the brains from the bozos. An important part of the template asks about experience with specific social media channels. This is important because client organizations increasingly need to spread their activities across a range of platforms in order to reach customers and business partners where they already live.

I’ll admit my eyes bugged out a bit when I first looked at this document. It’s exhaustive. But I don’t think the point is to bend an agency over a barrel to answer every single question. Choose the questions that are most relevant to your situation because nearly every possible question is here.

Any agency that fancies itself to be a social media expert should get to work answering these questions now. I have a feeling that they’re going to keep seeing them in client pitches for some time to come.

Maggie did a good interview with Shel Holtz last week explaining the purpose of the template. There are no licensing terms. Grab it and go.

Love Your Subscribers

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Ford Fiest MovementFord Motor Company is widely considered to be an outstanding practitioner of social media marketing. Under the leadership of Scott Monty (more than 36,000 followers on Twitter), the company has created such innovations as multimedia Ford Story website and consumer-generated Fiesta Movement (right).

So I was a little surprised recently when Scott Monty told me, “Most of the mainstream still relies on e-mail. Newsletters will be a big part of our strategy for 2010.”

Newsletters? E-mail? Isn’t that stuff so last millennium? In fact, e-mail continues to be the killer app of social media. E-marketer reported last month that “e-mail was the top channel for distributing content to friends, with 46.4% of all shares. About one-third of shares went to Facebook and less than 6% were tweeted.”

The Pew Internet & American Life Project reported last fall that more people use the Internet for e-mail than for any other activity, including search.

So allow me to sing the praises of e-mail as an engagement medium. Note I didn’t say “marketing medium.” Every marketer I’ve spoken to for the last two years has told me that e-mail blasts are delivering fewer and fewer quality results. E-mail newsletters, however, continue to be a core to their strategies. Here’s why.

Social media provides a great opportunity to create awareness among groups of people you don’t know, but they pale next to e-mail’s capacity to sustain relationships. My newsletter consumes about four hours of my time each week, which is not a small investment. However, it’s an invaluable way to sustain important relationships and a pretty steady source of new business. About 30% of my subscribers open each issue and I invariably get at least four or five direct responses as well as several comments to the blog. The newsletter also generates at least a couple of new business leads every month.

E-mail has one critical advantage over all social media: it’s permission-based. By subscribing to my newsletter, you give me permission to periodically intrude upon your inbox with a message that I hope is of interest to you. Your inbox is hallowed ground to me. While I don’t take unsubscribes personally, I do monitor them for evidence that my topics are going off-base. I respond to every reply I receive to a newsletter and I take those comments seriously. Anyone who takes the time to subscribe deserves my attention.

So let’s abstract this back to a business newsletter. I believe every company should have one. The subscription form on your site creates the opportunity to convert casual visits into conversations. It’s a chance to enhance visitors’ understanding of what you do, update them on new initiatives and demonstrate your value. A static website should catch attention; a newsletter should create a dialogue.

Think Different (As Apple Would Say)

You should think differently about newsletters than you do about other forms of communication. For one thing, you should make the message more personal. Your newsletter subscribers have a deeper interest in what you do than casual Web visitors. Give them your best stuff.

Subscribers should get value from a newsletter that they don’t get from a website or e-mail blast. That may be insight, an offer, an advance peek at something new or an invitation. If subscribers don’t get something special, why should they bother subscribing?

Newsletters are an excellent place to pull together your recent activities and show how your business is moving forward. Speak personally; this is a conversation, not an advertisement. Ask someone in your company to share a bit of expertise. Preview some new research before sharing it with the world. Give subscribers an exclusive discount. Share a behind-the-scenes look at a product or service that the rest of the world doesn’t get to see.

Always invite response. The “Reply” button is the fastest way to establish a dialogue. You might also give people the option to post their comments publicly on your blog or via Twitter hash tag.

When people respond, return the favor. I can’t emphasize this enough. Your newsletter is a way to convert an impression into a relationship. Why would you fumble away an opportunity for interaction? And when I say respond, I don’t mean with a boilerplate message. Better not to respond at all than to leave the task to a robot.

I subscribe to a lot of newsletters just to keep an eye on what others are doing. I’m often amazed at how little attention businesses pay to optimizing the potential of their newsletters. Airlines, for example, fill my inbox with discounts and package deals. I can’t remember the last time one of them invited my feedback or tried to help me be a better traveler. Perhaps that’s why I don’t subscribe to many airline newsletters anymore.

What ideas have worked for your newsletters? Let’s keep the dialogue going by sharing some successes in the comments area below.

Twitterville Explains It All

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Shel Israel’s Twitterville is currently sitting at number 62,000 on Amazon, which is disappointing because a lot of people should be reading this book. I suspect that Twitterville’s performance has been impacted by the flood of how-to-tweet books that have hit the market this year, but this book isn’t microblogging for dummies. Rather, Twitterville is a celebration of a new platform that has unleashed the creative energies of a community in ways that few of us could have ever conceived.

Israel says he interviewed more than 100 people for this book and it shows. Its scope spans everything from politics to nonprofits to law enforcement to giant corporations. Each Twitter member finds value in different ways.

Israel was co-author of the groundbreaking 2006 book Naked Conversations, which was the first book to  dramatize the game-changing nature of social media. Twitterville is no less important in framing the context for a revolution. Israel starts with the story of James Buck, a freelance journalist who was arrested by Egyptian police in 2008 and whose plight (and subsequent release) was communicated around the world by a single tweet: “arrested.”

Buck’s case was emblematic of the multiplicative power of Twitter. He had only a few followers at the time of his arrest, but a sequence of re-tweeted messages by some prominent Twitter members quickly spread word to the State Department, which intervened within 24 hours.

This idea that an individual can attain great influence by virtue of telling a remarkable story is central to understanding the power of Twitter and of social media in general. It also dramatizes the triumph of the individual over the impersonal corporate entity. “An individual brand now impacts the corporate brand,” Israel writes. Twitter “is a community of millions of personal brands. They are shaping the present and future of individuals and the companies they represent.”

That doesn’t mean businesses can’t develop a brand on Twitter, and Israel provides many  examples of companies that have. His point, however, is that you can’t think of the Twittersphere in terms of mass. Brands are built in Twitter by imparting wisdom, helping others and contributing to the collective knowledge. Corporations that experience the most success are those that let their people come out from behind the brand wall and act human.

The value of contributing to the collective good permeates Twitterville. Israel calls this “lethal generosity.” It’s the idea that people who “are the most generous to their communities almost invariably acquire the greatest influence.” This concept is central to another recent book I recommend: Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Coming at a time when the world is still reeling from a financial crisis precipitated by greed, it’s refreshing to see celebrations of  generosity. In one section on fundraising, Israel recounts several stories of charitable success that would have been unimaginable before a medium like Twitter existed.

Twitterville isn’t all celebration. In Chapter 15, Israel analyzes the seamy underworld of spammers, bots and phishermen and relates a couple of hair-raising stories of people whose reputations have been trashed by identity thieves. As Larry Ellison once said, “Every ecosystem has scavengers.” Twitter is no exception, and by acknowledging Twitter’s dark side, Israel makes the argument for the medium’s value all the more compelling.

The book provides useful advice on how to keep out of trouble as well as how to optimize the Twitter experience, but it  isn’t a book about how to amass 100,000 followers. It’s about how relationships work in a world constrained by limitations of space and time, yet liberated by the ingenuity and spirit of its citizens. If you still don’t “get” Twitter, then read Twitterville. You’ll quickly understand.

The Decade That Transformed Media

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As we head into the second decade of the new millennium (okay, it technically doesn’t begin for another year, but stick with me), it’s worth remembering where media stood just 10 years ago.

In December, 1999, few people had heard of Google. Online advertising was banners and e-mails. Big media brands dominated the Web.  US newspaper ad revenue would hit record levels in 2000. Newsroom employment would peak in 2001 as newsstand sales of the top 100 magazines approached 30 million. No one had heard of blogs. People used mobile phones to talk.

Fast forward to 2009. This year, people spent six billion minutes on Facebook, downloaded one billion YouTube videos and logged over 1.4 million blog entries every day. The iPhone became the first mobile phone to be used more for data than for voice. The Internet became the second most popular news medium behind television. Wikipedia posted its three millionth article.

Meanwhile, US newsroom employment fell to a 25-year low and magazine newsstand sales dropped to 63% of their 2001 peaks. Reader’s Digest declared bankruptcy. Comcast said it would buy NBC.

The statistics go on and on. In just 10 years, our century-old mass-market media model has given way to a new structure dominated by the economics of one. Customers now take their opinions directly to the market.  Woe to organizations that don’t listen.

The contraction of mass-market media has brought plenty of pain. Tens of thousands of media professionals have lost their jobs in the past two years, crowdsourcing has sent some professional fees into a tailspin and veteran marketers are under threat if they don’t “get” social media. But this pain is necessary, even beneficial in the long run.

New Efficiency

That’s because media has historically been one of the least efficient disciplines on the planet. It’s a profession that declares success if only 97% of its audience ignores an ad or tosses the mailer into the trash. It gains one customer at the expense of annoying 50 bystanders. When department store magnate John Wanamaker said half his ad dollars were wasted, but “I don’t know which half,” he was being generous.

The new Internet has flipped the economics. As media control has passed from institutions to individuals, waste has begun to be worked out of the system. The cost of reaching a targeted customer will only decline in the years to come. Sadly, efficiency will also devastate those industries and professions that thrived on media’s historical inefficiency.

While mourning the loss of comfort and security that old media once provided, we shouldn’t get caught up looking backward. More competitive markets will bring new options for reaching customers. The marketers who survive will be those who put the past behind and move quickly to take advantage of these new efficiencies.

Let’s start the year not by mourning the losses of the last decade but by learning the skills we’ll need to survive the next.

What changes will we be looking back upon a decade from now? Post your predictions as comments.

UPDATED: Draft Outline B2B Social Marketing Book

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Here s a first-pass topical outline for the book Social Marketing to the Business Customer, by Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman (John Wiley & Sons, late 2010). This outline attempts to define all the major issues to be addressed in a book targeted at business-to-business marketers. Your thoughts are welcome. Use the comments area to tell us what we’ve missed and where we should devote the most attention. And if there’s anything that shouldn’t be here, let us know that as well

Note: Practical advice will be interleaved with case studies, vignettes and quotes from practitioners. We are very interested in identifying candidates for case studies. If you have a good story to tell or tips to share, contact Paul or Eric at paul{at}gillin{dot}com or eric{at}ericschwartzman[dot]c0m.

Update: This outline was revised and reposted on March 3, 2010. The most recent revision appears below. Earlier revisions have been deleted. Many of the comments refer to items that appeared in earlier versions.

Update: This outline was revised and reposted on Jan. 5, 2010 based on earlier feedback

1. The Changing Rules of B-to-B Marketing

  1. Traditional media in decline
  2. Rise of the unofficial spokesperson
  3. Proliferating channels to customer or, from a marketers point of view, audience fragmentation.
  4. The importance of peer-to-peer communications: the impact of markets as conversations.
  5. Assessing most effective platforms for B2B social media marketing
  6. Contrasting b-to-c and b-to-b audiences
  7. Creating a strategic framework for platform assessment.
  8. Promoting responsible edge work through corporate social media policies. If there’s no formal policy in place empowering employees to do the edge work, why would they risk their jobs to engage?

    1. Assessing value of end-customer pull vs. business partner push
  9. Estimating staffing requirements

2. 10 Ways You Can Use Social Media for B-to-B Marketing

  1. When social media is and isn’t appropriate
  2. Risk/reward matrix
  3. Applying social media to the traditional sales cycle
  4. Researching audience needs

    1. Listening and engaging
    2. Inviting feedback
    3. Market research
  5. Shift from demographic to psychographic profiling
  6. Product development
  7. Customer/channel relations
  8. Peer-to-peer marketing
  9. Cost-saving opportunities
  10. Applications of crowdsourcing

3. Getting Buy-In and Resources –

  1. Explaining value to stakeholders
  2. Adopting the mindset
  3. Test and revise
  4. Overcoming popular objections

    1. Top 10 arguments to make with legal and HR
    2. Convincing the CIO

4. Organizing for Social B-to-B

  1. Empowering employees to speak
  2. Integrating social media with conventional marketing
  3. Re-skilling the organization
  4. Marketing department organization
  5. Building bridges to other departments

5. Protect Yourself: Creating & Enforcing Social Media Policies

  1. Defining “transparency”
  2. Coordinating with existing corporate policies

    1. HR code of conduct
    2. IT policies
  3. Social media Policies vs. Guidelines

    1. Legal issues to consider
    2. Do you need a policy?
    3. Start fresh or build on existing policies?
    4. Issues to address

      1. Disclosure
      2. Private vs. Business Personae
      3. Privacy and confidentiality
      4. Respectfulness, diplomacy and conflict resolution
      5. Crisis considerations
  4. Enforcement and penalties
  5. Regulatory considerations

    1. Tweeting through an IPO

6. Lead Generation

  1. Building social media into the selling cycle
  2. Stages of the funnel
  3. Quality vs. quantity leads

7. Getting Starting: Easy Low-Risk Opportunities

  1. Identifying high impact applications for quick results
  2. Demand pull vs. supply push
  3. Choosing tools
  4. Analytics and metrics
  5. Worksheets
  6. Selecting participants
  7. Campaign lifecycles
  8. Budgeting
  9. Allocating resources
  10. Beyond the first campaign – next steps

8. Listening to Customers

  1. Listening through filters
  2. Embracing popular language
  3. Dealing with negativity without losing your cool
  4. Going “off message” in search of relevant conversations
  5. Keyword research primer (contributed by Lee Odden)
  6. Keyword validation
  7. Quality vs. Quantity tradeoffs
  8. Conversions
  9. Advanced search
  10. Competitive analysis
  11. Research alternatives
  12. Ratings systems
  13. Assembling a rapid response team
  14. Policies and procedures
  15. Building internal feedback loops

9. A Customer Is Not a Transaction: Deepening Relationships

  1. Incorporating social media into customer care and support (Social CRM)
  2. 360° listening scenarios
  3. Building a listening dashboard
  4. Creating customer testimonials and endorsements
  5. Integrating social media and customer events
  6. Brand ambassador programs

10. Profiting From Customer Communities & Social Networks

  1. Value of communities
  2. Branded vs. public communities
  3. Public vs. private
  4. Where do branded communities make sense?
  5. Best practices for encouraging activity
  6. Do you need a dedicated community manager?
  7. Skills requirements
  8. Employee involvement in customer communities
  9. Platform selection

11. B-to-b Uses for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter

  1. Features and audiences
  2. Organizational versus individual value
  3. Using the platforms in combination with each other
  4. Behavioral standards and community values

12. A Non-Techie’s Guide to Choosing Platforms: Beginning, Intermediate & Advanced

  1. Securing the right infrastructure: Web 2.0, Licensed Software, Open Source and SaaS
  2. Matching platform to objective
  3. Overview of major platforms
  4. Public versus private platforms
  5. Selection grid and decision tree
  6. Examples of best practices
  7. Staff assignments and responsibilities
  8. Integrated campaigns
  9. Mobility (contributed by Christina Kerley)
  10. Risks: Data Portability, Back-up, Support, Service Level Agreements and Attention Siphons

13. Metrics and ROI

  1. How practitioners are approaching ROI
  2. Strength/weakness analysis of major metrics
  3. Working backwards from the goal
  4. Revision cycles
  5. Suggested ROI methodologies
  6. Multiplatform multiplier effect

14. What’s Next for B-to-B Social Media

  1. Expanding internal stakeholder involvement
  2. 2. Creating branded customer communities
  3. 3. Multichannel campaigns
  4. 4. Internal/external program integration
  5. 5. Creating a social media-aware workforce

RCN: “Not Our Problem”

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OK, Vincent Ferrari I’m not, but this was still a pretty frustrating call. I’ve actually been pretty happy with RCN service overall, but it appears their network diagnostics leave something to be desired.

Me: My Internet service is down again. It’s been going down once or twice a day for the last month. I think there’s something wrong with the modem.
RCN Tech: Did you try power-cycling the modem and all your computers?
Me: That’s not the issue. Power-cycling always fixes the problem for a few hours but then the service goes down again. I shouldn’t have to power-cycle everything twice a day.
RCN Tech: Are there any lights on the modem?
Me: There are three: two steady and one flashing. These are the same three lights that glow whenever the service goes down.
RCN Tech: Well, I’m looking at your modem right now and it says everything’s fine.
Me: Well, it clearly isn’t fine because I have a laptop sitting here directly connected to the modem and I can’t get an IP address.
RCN Tech: Did you power-cycle your laptop before connecting it?
Me: No! The point is not to have to power-cycle equipment every time I want to connect!
RCN Tech: Well, everything looks fine from here.
Me: But it’s clearly not fine from here. Look, I’ll reboot the laptop, just like you said. [three minutes later] OK, I rebooted everything and there’s still no IP address.
RCN Tech: Did you reset the modem?
Me: THAT’S NOT THE POINT!
RCN Tech: I don’t know what to tell you, sir, because I’m able to ping the modem just fine.
Me: But clearly the problem is between the modem and the devices connected to the modem. Can you ping any of those?
RCN Tech: I’m unable to ping any devices connected to the modem unless they have an IP address.
Me: But the problem is that nothing connected to the modem can get an IP address because the modem isn’t working right! Are you saying your diagnostics have no way of identifying a problem between the modem and the devices connected to it?
RCN Tech: You do have the option of buying your own modem.
Me: Don’t I pay RCN a lease fee every month for this modem?
RCN Tech: Yes, three dollars.
Me: So doesn’t that entitle me to swap the modem for a new one?
RCN Tech: I guess it does. Do you know the address of your local service office?
Me: Yeah, never mind…