Meryl K. Evans | B2B Social Media Blog

Name: Meryl K.

Web Site: http://www.meryl.net/blog/

Bio: Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetViZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest, and Professional Services Journal. Contact her by email - Meryl@InternetVIZ.com. Follow her on Twitter http://twitter.com/merylkevans

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Using Twitter to Support Your Business Social Media Strategy

April 28th, 2011

How to monitor and promote your company with tweets
by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, Professional Services Journal

With springtime comes blooming flowers and the start of a new baseball season. After the first rendition of “Take Me out to the Ballgame,” picture yourself sitting in a large stadium looking down on the bright green diamond and undisturbed brown dirt.

The home team hits the field. There’s the pitcher ready to throw the ball and set the play in motion. At the other end waiting for the pitch is the catcher who prepares to stop whatever the batter doesn’t hit. The visiting team’s batter marches toward the batter’s box looking confident and determined to whack whatever the pitcher throws to take his team’s first offensive move toward its overall strategy to win the game.

For businesses with a social media strategy, Twitter is the pitcher, Facebook is the catcher and LinkedIn is the batter. You may substitute the catcher with a different social network tactic. Twitter and the other social networks are not a strategy. They’re tools and tactics to support a company’s social media or marketing strategy.

Whatever you include in your social media lineup, you want to coach your Twitter player to succeed in using the tools to help the team win with its strategy, especially in the areas of self-promotion and monitoring.

Twitter is much more than monitoring and self-promotion. The reason for the focus on these two is that not every business feels it needs to be active in Twitter. Every business must at least listen in on Twitter. As for promotion, every business wants to promote its products and services, and that alone can affect the outcome of the game.

Monitor people’s experiences

People talk about your company and your competitors all the time. If they run into a problem with a product or service, they’ll tweet about it. If they have a bad experience with customer service, they’ll tweet that, too. Don’t fret — not all tweets are negative. People tweet about amazing experiences and why they love JKL company.

If someone struggles to find answers to a problem, he or she’ll ask for help in Twitter. Imagine what would happen if you solve that person’s problem without mentioning your product or service. You may find a new evangelist for your company. Tweets like “I’m looking into ABC and XYZ. Which do you like better? Why?” appear all the time. You don’t want to miss them when someone mentions you or your competitor.

Also keep in mind that your company can recover from negative tweets. In one case, a customer tweeted her disappointment in a company’s lack of response to her email requesting help after she had already looked for answers on her own. Within a few minutes, the company responded with a link so she could submit a trouble ticket. It took only 15 minutes from her first tweet to get the problem solved. After that, she wrote two positive tweets about the company. Two positive tweets to one negative; that’s a good deal.

As soon as you find a complaint or negative tweet mentioning your company, acknowledge the tweet even if you don’t have a solution right away. Then, use follow up tweets as needed to resolve the problem. Every situation is different. You want to be listening and ready to respond.

Limit self-promotion

Every major league baseball stadium has posted ads. But they don’t dominate the baseball experience. If they do, it’ll turn off fans who want to watch the game without too many distractions. Businesses on Twitter, of course, want to promote their products, services and content. You can do that as long as it doesn’t take over the Twitter game.

Several experienced social media users share their help and self-promotion ratio, but no one rule stands out. One expert says he tweets one self-promotion for every 10 tweets. Another uses the 80/20 principle with 20 percent of the tweets being self-promos and 80 percent devoted to helping others, sharing expertise (without selling) and posting useful resources.

People always break rules in social media. You will find Twitter accounts that do nothing but tweet the latest articles and blog entries from their own websites. Often, the people behind the website or company have separate Twitter accounts for engaging and helping others.

You can make your self-promotion tweets more helpful. For example, if you want to share your company’s latest blog post, don’t just tweet the post title and link. Give people a reason to check it out by telling them what’s in it for them. (Yes, the old standby of “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM) applies to Twitter!)

Be human like Babe Ruth

Twitter gives companies the chance to show the people behind social media who like to help and want to share valuable information with others. It’s harder to say no to a person who answers your question than to a company that talks to no one and only talks about itself.

Use Twitter to listen, engage and help while limiting the self-promotion. Go the distance, ease their pains and people will come to you and your company.

About the editor

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the IT Solutions Journal, Connected Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans.

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Previous Dilemma:
Um … how do I tell an employee he has bad breath?

December 16th, 2010

One of my employees, let’s say Brad, has bad breath. Unfortunately, it’s not a temporary issue. I’ve tried all the subtle ways to adapt and change, but nothing works, and the idea of talking to Brad about his breath makes me uncomfortable.

Yet, I have to do something since I’m his manager. Should I give him a never-ending supply of chewing gum or is there a more tactful way to handle this?

— Manager

Summary of Advice Received

Would You Like Some Gum with That?

B2B Social Media Digest

Most of us have done it. We sit in a one-to-one meeting in a coworker’s small cubicle. Every time the coworker speaks, coffee breath floats up your nose — not exactly the same delightful aroma you detect when fresh coffee brews.

We don’t want to offend the colleague, so we subtly move back while nonchalantly bringing a hand near the nose to block the scent. Maybe it works for a minute, but not enough. (The nose is an excellent detective who won’t quit working.)

Keep in mind that bad breath may be the cause of many jokes and embarrassing situations, but it can signal a health problem. The National Institutes of Health has a long list of potential causes of breath odor. Here are a few:

Periodontal disease, which can irritate the gums and eventually cause tooth decay.
Ketoacidosis, a side effect of diabetes when the body doesn’t have enough insulin and instead uses fat.
Diseases such as chronic kidney disease, lung problems, liver failure and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
Temporary illnesses including sinus infections, bronchitis and upper respiratory infections.

So what can you do? Everyone agrees that you need to tell the employee. Here are two approaches to take:

Be honest.
Use humor.

Of course, if you have other advice, please share it in the comments, or if you face a different challenge, please tell us about it so we can post it and ask for advice.

Be honest

Dan Michalko tells a story of what happens when you offer mints or gum. “‘Good morning, Brad.’ (Manager takes out a pack of breath mints.) ‘Have a breath mint.’” Brad thanks the manager. The manager encourages Brad to take the rest of them. Brad turns down the mints. “The Manager responds, ‘I’d really like you to have them. I want you to maintain a professional image to go with the great work you do.’”

Michalko makes a good point in that the employee may just think the manager is being nice, not pointing out a problem. After getting over the hump of letting the employee know about bad breath, encourage the employee to visit a website like WebMD.com and search for “bad breath.”

It’s a shame the issue of bad breath embarrasses everyone, both the offender and offendee. Since this could be a health issue, someone needs to speak up with tact and sensitivity to help the employee. In addition to taking a gentle approach, a reader advises letting the employee know it is a confidential conversation. A reader offers a good statement to use with the Brads out there. “Brad, I want to bring something to your attention. I’m telling you this because I respect you … if it was ME I would want someone to tell me.”

Another reader believes that the fixable situation could affect Brad’s career if he doesn’t do something about it. “Make sure that you tell Brad you value his contribution,” says the reader.

Manon Labrecque, a member Material Technician, Toolroom/Sourcing CPPM with GE Aviation, has dealt with the issue of body odor with a male and a female employee. Labrecque reports that the employees appreciated the feedback. In another instance, an employee with bad breath had a medical issue, and surgery took care of it.

Another idea is to use the term “halitosis” instead of “bad breath.” Using a clinical term may make it easier to talk about it. Plus, you take out the negative connotation of “bad breath.”

Use humor

Humor defuses the tension, and this harmless topic is a stressful one for the person with the offended schnoz. A reader proposes not only using humor, but to be self-deprecating.

“Hey Brad, I need to advise you of a problem I have. Due to the fact that we both smoke cigarettes like maniacs, we both need to ensure we hit the Tic-Tacs on a regular basis. Believe me on this … If I miss my regular dose of breath fresheners, I have the ability to peel paint. Think of all the children, have a mint, Bro ,” says the reader. You’re smiling, aren’t you?

Maybe share a story — or make one up if you can’t recall a situation — when someone did you a favor and pointed out a bad breath problem or another sensitive issue. And end that story by expressing gratitude that someone pointed it out to you, and you’re trying to do the same.

“In showing the courage to talk with him, you’ll likely project an aura of strength and resolve,” says Jeff Deutsch, life coach and presenter, A SPLINT (ASPies LInking with NTs). The embarrassment lasts for minutes, but the results will be long-lasting like any good quality gum.

Have you dealt with bad breath, body odors or another embarrassing issue? How did you handle it? Please join the discussion in the comments because your voice matters.

Got a challenge of your own you need help solving? Submit your question. You can remain anonymous, if you prefer.

About the editor

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest, IT Solutions Journal and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans.

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Enterprising Company Sends Dead Grasshoppers

November 24th, 2010

And gives back to future entrepreneurs
Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest

Grasshopper Group is the company behind the 5,000 campaign, a rebranding campaign that included sending five green chocolate-covered grasshoppers to 5,000 influencers. The company used FedEx to create a sense of urgency and authenticity. A glossy white bag with an attached hangtag appeared inside each envelope. The hangtag had a URL leading to a video about the power of entrepreneurship.

Chocolate-covered grasshoppers may not be an American delicacy, yet the campaign compelled influencers like Guy Kawasaki to tweet about the campaign. The result: The switch from the GotVmail brand to the new brand of Grasshopper worked. Who thinks of GotVmail after receiving grasshoppers in the mail?

Social media strategy

Grasshopper Group helps start and grow businesses. The startup company began growing its own product and moved on to help other entrepreneurs — then added a few more products.

Grasshopper aims to create a fun environment for employees. Since many of them already interacted with social media sites for personal reasons, it was natural for the company to take an official step toward social media and encourage employees to meld personal and work life online.

“We thought that employees could take their already strong online influence and act as proud company ambassadors,” says Stephanie Bullis, ambassador of buzz at Grasshopper Group. “Since our original plunge into social media, things have become slightly more organized; however, we have zero and never will have any sort of social policy,” she says.

The company saw that customers, the entrepreneurs using its products, were already engaged in social media. This compelled the company to join the online conversation to ensure that people could find the company and interact with employees.

Since Grasshopper focuses on entrepreneurs, a group that tends to be technically savvy, the company knew it’d be a wise move to adopt social media and tools with the following strategies in mind.

Use social media as a way to communicate a cohesive message across multiple platforms.
Make connections with customers, media, influencers, etc., that may not otherwise be possible. Start by building relationships online that later translate into more powerful offline relationships.
Connect as real people. Bridging from business to business (B2B) to peer to peer (P2P) provides a more personal identity for the corporate brand.
Share relevant information such as articles, tips, infographics, resources, events, etc.
Empower 1 million entrepreneurs to succeed, by providing them with invaluable tools for their businesses.
Support entrepreneurs beyond a product suite.
Educate entrepreneurs that Grasshopper Group-like products exist. People start businesses every day that need affordable solutions to get up and running.

Building the business case

Sometimes, social media doesn’t make sense for businesses. Grasshopper knew it could find its main audiences on social media, where they collect information and connect with others. Social media makes it possible to engage with customers on a more personal basis.

Grasshopper Group employees find that it’s easier to track social media than traditional marketing efforts like radio and TV ads. Allison Canty, social media coordinator with Grasshopper Group, says, “You see the conversations happening about your brand, and you can influence them.”

People will talk about your brand and ask questions whether or not your company appears on social media. Better to be there as a resource, or others may negatively influence opinions of your brand.

Measuring success

Grasshopper looks at its connections, which is the number of people following the company’s Twitter account, subscribing to its blogs or “liking” the Facebook page. However, these numbers mean little if no one interacts. The company studies interactions through retweets, mentions, shared-information Facebook status tags (when people “tag” the company on their walls), and comments on blogs and wall posts.

Another important factor is influence based on the company’s reach through its posts — who talks about them and where. Of course, conversion is the fourth element of measuring social media success. Conversion is based on sales, revenue, referrals, and traffic driven to company and product sites.

In monitoring Twitter for specific keywords, Bullis saw a tweet from someone asking about a virtual PBX solution. Rather than just responding to check out Grasshopper, she also provided two Twitter IDs of customers using the service. One tweet led to a phone call and the person became a customer. Not only that, but also the customer had an online radio show and invited Bullis to be a guest. He also acts as a Twitter referral whenever someone asks about Grasshopper and its products.

When Twitter’s “fail whale” (for the uninitiated: a picture of a whale appears when Twitter is down) keeps showing up as people attempt to connect to Twitter, they grow frustrated and spread that onto other networks. Oh, the irony. Grasshopper has turned technical difficulties — something that can happen to any company — into a positive experience thanks to social media.

For example, during a brief outage with the company’s phone system, the staff hopped on the social networks to provide regular updates on the outage. Customers knew exactly when the service was back up. A company that doesn’t join conversations could easily experience a publicity nightmare. Because the company provided consistent information and updates, customers never had a chance to become frustrated and instead saw a company that provided fast, thorough customer service.

Advice to businesses

Many companies enjoying social media success have said this, and it deserves repeating: no company should dive into social media just because everyone is doing it. Social media takes time and planning to be successful in engaging prospects.

The two biggest hurdles Grasshopper Group faced in entering social media were finding the time to do it and figuring how much time to invest. The staff doesn’t have a rule for this, and like most people, some days they spend more time in social media than others. “Things happen very fast, and if you’re not constantly monitoring to some degree, you can miss out on important conversations,” Canty says. The more customer conversations that occur in social media, the more time staff spend engaging and listening.

Social media can open the door and cultivate relationships. Where the real value comes in is taking the conversations outside of social media using the phone or meeting in person to make a personal connection. “People trust you more and realize that you’re a real person and not just a corporate brand hiding behind a computer screen looking to make sales,” Bullis says.

Almost every company experiencing success in social media says it began by looking at its target market, where customers and prospects interact and set expectations before engaging. Canty says, “Determine what your communication with them will be (platform, tone, frequency) and what your communication will be from them.” The Grasshopper team continues to learn from companies that excel in social media and mimic their efforts while retaining the company’s own voice.

Social media elements

Goal: The company aims to spread three messages: “We are empowering entrepreneurs to succeed with a suite of products they love to use,” “We’re a brand for entrepreneurs” and “We’re a trusted resource.”

Social media tools: Grasshopper’s staff takes social media seriously and has fun doing it through these social tools:

Twitter. The Grasshopper Group has various Twitter IDs to share information specific to the product or business, including @ghgroup and @grasshopper. Employees use Twitter to engage with their target markets for each Twitter ID because that’s where they can find and interact with their audience to share information and extend their reach. Founders and CEOs tweet with customers and prospects using personal Twitter handles and don’t hide behind a corporate logo.
Facebook. The company has pages for Grasshopper Group, Grasshopper.com and Chargify. It uses Facebook for personal interaction with customers and fans and provides updates including new features, events attending, news, blog posts and anything else involving the company.
LinkedIn. Grasshopper posts blogs on the company’s LinkedIn page as well as uses LinkedIn as a platform to connect with professionals, network, recruit, answer questions, join related groups and participate in discussions.
YouTube. GetGrasshopper’s channel is loaded with how-to videos and caught wildfire with the company’s conceived New Dork video. It hired the Pantless Knights to create this video that helped generate brand awareness and fun for entrepreneurs.
Blogs. Staff use blogs to tell customer stories, discuss related topics such as startups and entrepreneurs, host guest bloggers, and share information regarding products.
Flickr. Photo albums show pictures of the office, events and outings.

All these activities help the company influence brand loyalists and encourage happy customers to want to talk about products. Staff gain input on how to do their jobs better.

Results: While Grasshopper sees comments on blog posts and content retweeted in Twitter, the company knows social media is working when customers report they chose Grasshopper over competitors because of its social media presence.

The company created National Entrepreneurs Day to recognize entrepreneurs and encourage others to sign a petition to compel President Barack Obama to recognize the day. This is a 100 percent Twitter campaign. Soon, the campaign grew on blogs and Facebook so much that Kaufman Foundation took notice and recognized the company in its Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Almost daily, Grasshopper staff sees tweets asking for recommendations for services or similar services. Thanks to Grasshopper’s brand loyalist customers on Twitter and its social media monitoring due diligence, it can influence these conversations and help people with buying decisions. People sign up for services based on the staff’s immediate responses and help on Twitter.

Because of creative campaigns and social media, the company has more than 35,000 customers and has empowered more than 100,000 entrepreneurs. It has accomplished what most would consider impossible for a company with zero sales representatives. “We get to know our customers, their stories and their passions. With this information, we can help promote their story to our entire audience of online followers and influential media contacts,” Bullis says.

About the interviewees

Stephanie Bullis is the ambassador of buzz at Grasshopper Group. She is passionate about fostering relationships with entrepreneurs and connecting with the startup community. You can find Bullis on Twitter @srbullis or via email at sbullis@grasshoppergroup.com.

Allison Canty is the social media coordinator at Grasshopper Group. She is responsible for managing Grasshopper Group’s online social presence and is passionate about Internet and social media marketing. You can connect with Canty via Twitter at @AliCanty.

About the author

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans, LinkedIn or Facebook.

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Building a Human Network

October 18th, 2010

Cisco Systems enjoys the social media playground
by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest

Think back 25 years. Can you believe we didn’t have cell phones and a computer in every home and on every desk? The precursor to personal digital assistants, the Palm Pilot didn’t debut until 1996!

The networking company, Cisco Systems, is celebrating 25 years. (Can you believe the company didn’t exist before 1984?)

What do you see in 25 years? The innovative company has a CiscoIn25 video contest, which appears on its Facebook page with over 100,000 fans. The big question behind the contest is “How do you think technology will evolve in the next 25 years?”

The human network strategy

As you look at Cisco’s Facebook page, you can tell the company is having fun with social media and bolstering its “Together we are the human network” campaign. Employees managing the page know they represent a business and balance fun with business (see the evidence on the Facebook Page Guidelines).

Yet developing a human network requires more than fun — widespread resolve. Cisco integrates its social media strategy into every aspect of the company from product development and sales to human resources and communications. The company relies on social media to interact with employees, customers, potential employees, press, investors and analysts.

From an organizational chart perspective, two teams manage these efforts. Although the two teams have separate objectives and audiences, they work together on social media governance and training.

The social media communications team falls under corporate communications, and John Earnhardt, director of social media communications, leads the team. This team manages the overall content and strategy across Cisco corporate social channels including Corporate Newsroom, @CiscoSystems Twitter feed, Cisco Facebook page, Flickr and YouTube.

“The social media communications team focuses on those ‘influencers’ who, if you will, get a vote against our uber-company goal of being the most important technology company in the world,” says Earnhardt.

Jeanette Gibson (@jeanetteg) leads the other team, the social media marketing team housed in the central marketing organization. This team oversees integrated social media campaigns, lead generation, online brand strategy and overall monitoring and listening programs for the company. Its focus is on customers and lead generation.

Earnhardt says, “We both use the same tools, although they tend to focus on smaller communities that may lead customers or prospects into the sales funnel. In communications, we certainly point to our products and communities if people want to go there, but we don’t measure how much revenue we impact or leads we create.”

Building the business case

Using social media is a no brainer for a technology company like Cisco. The fun began with the company’s first external blog in 2005. “It was an experiment to ‘extend’ the experience and voice of our public policy team members within our government affairs group,” Cisco Senior Social Media Strategist Autumn Truong says.

“We’ve learned that we can have richer and more engaging conversations through social media. We are a customer-centric company that doesn’t fall in love with any specific technology. We ask customers and deliver what they want. Social media helps us listen and respond.”

The company added its YouTube channel in 2007, its Twitter account two years later and the Facebook page in 2009. The business case needed no help when the proof was in the conversation.

Measuring success

For Cisco, social media is about interactions. Truong says, “Regardless of your respective social media programs, engagement is at the heart of what we want to measure and achieve. Whether it’s as simple as someone retweeting your content or as involved as commenting or blogging — these connections provide great insight into the level of interest people have on a particular topic. If we can help our community engage and participate in the conversations, based on the content and information we share across our social media channels, that’s a win for us.”

To facilitate an upcoming redesign, Cisco plans to fine-tune and redefine how it measures content engagement on its site and across all its social networks. In fact, the company will use the redesign opportunity to ask readers if it should have a new name for News@Cisco in its blog and to receive suggestions from Facebook fans. A poll in Facebook will provide valuable information.

Currently, the company is experimenting with coupons on its Facebook page. It rewards new fans with a discount on two of the company’s products. This effort is helping the company gauge its Facebook community engagement.

Advice to businesses

Employees know that social media is still new from a business perspective. Cisco’s social media teams continue to learn while sharing insight and best practices, especially on its blogs. The company also shares its Social Media Guidelines handbook.

Social media’s low barrier to entry makes it easy for B2B companies to dive into it. Cisco believes that — after identifying your audience, goals and proof of success — you “Just do it.” You learn by doing and making mistakes.

A word of warning: Cisco used to rely on anonymous bloggers, and employees have talked about stuff they should not have revealed in public. These types of things can be damaging, but may ultimately hurt the employee more than the company.

Earnhardt says, “Fundamentally, employee training should be along the simple and clear lines of ‘offline and online rules are the same.’ For example, if policy says don’t talk to the media on the phone without your PR team, then certainly don’t talk to them on Twitter or Facebook.”

The teams rely on valuable online resources like Mashable for social media advice, but nothing replaces figuring these things out for yourself.

Social media elements

Goal: The company’s vision is “changing the way we work, live, play and learn.” You may see this as a big, hairy, audacious goal or as Cisco affectionately calls it, BHAG. Earnhardt says, “We believe it’s something that networking technology inherently does. We connect. We make the world a smaller place through video and collaborative technology. We bring people together.”

Social media tools: Cisco uses every social network with fervor. It doesn’t simply set up at Facebook page and forget about it. Staff updates content regularly and engages with its audiences in five different touchpoints:

Corporate newsroom: The corporate newsroom takes the form of a blog with the latest news. It also seamlessly integrates Cisco’s other blogs giving visitors a quick overview of each.
Twitter: The @ciscosystems Twitter feed — managed by John Earnhardt — tweets news and information about Cisco and its executives. The account’s bio includes a link to Cisco’s support page.
Facebook: Cisco Facebook page doesn’t just provide information and news. The company has Facebook Page Guidelines, posts a fun contest, provides an offer and links to its other social network pages.
Flickr: Cisco’s flickr photostream has over 50 pages of images and photos related to company events, executives and other interesting photos like the Doobie Brothers showing up at Cisco. There’s that fun thing again.
YouTube: CSCOPR YouTube channel contains over 800 videos including a series by Greg Justice, who calls himself the company’s “World’s Most Interesting Intern” where he raps about his experience at Cisco — meeting the president of Russia, sitting in an ergonomic chair and sounding like C-3P0 spouting out corporate acronyms.

“There are so many conversations going on in the technology space, and we want our voice to be relevant and important in those conversations,” says Earnhardt. More important, the team considers listening to be a critical part of the social media formula. Its Facebook page not only polls fans about Cisco’s News@Cisco name and favorite Cisco Internet video, but also asks about Facebook privacy changes and favorite holiday movie. (We like It’s a Wonderful Life.)

Results: Cisco’s social media success is easy to see. Just look at its impressive numbers across the social media board. However, numbers only tell you part of the story. After all, people can easily follow a company, but it doesn’t mean they’re listening. So look to the multi-way conversations happening on the various networks. “While we still have a lot to learn and to uncover about the power of social media,” Truong says, “we’ve seen early success in terms of volume and the type of people we reach and impact in a real-time environment.”

A transparent engagement tool

To Cisco, social media isn’t a business driver, but a transparent tool to communicate with its audiences. Truong says, “At Cisco, social media is viewed similarly to corporate social responsibility … It doesn’t necessarily have a direct business impact, but it is good for business.”

The company is implementing many social media behind the firewall that the company calls the “quad,” an enterprise collaboration tool that borrows from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The quad helps employees better collaborate, build teams and share information. When these products start to be monetized, that’s the ultimate measure of their efficacy.

All of this makes you wonder: Which company is forming today that will be known by 2035? What technology are we living without right now?

Think about it. Today, 25 years is what 100 years was in the 1800s. Things that didn’t exist 10 years ago: Wikipedia (2001), iPod (2001), BlackBerry smartphone (2002) and Nintendo GameCube (2001).

What a difference a decade makes.

About the interviewees

John Earnhardt is director of social media communications at Cisco where he manages the social media team responsible for the award-winning News@Cisco news site, the corporate blog and Facebook pages, and the Twitter @CiscoSystems, Ustream and Flickr sites. Follow him at @urnhart.

Autumn Truong is a senior social media strategist at Cisco leading amplification, community management and influencer engagement programs within the corporate communications department. She works closely with various organizations within Cisco to drive alignment on social media measurement, strategy, policy and governance. Follow her at @autumntt.

About the author

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans, LinkedIn or on Facebook.

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Previous Issue’s Dilemma:
How do I thwart a thunder-stealing coworker?

October 12th, 2010

Recently, I worked hard on a project alone. The only help I received was from my coworker, Ed — but it was with resentment and, believe me, very minimal. The manager asked Ed who worked on the project. Ed said that I did it with his help. How can I get sole credit? Should I leave this situation alone or do something about it?

— Christine

Summary of Advice Received

Seeking Past-due Credit

B2B Social Media Digest

When was the last time your boss gave you an “atta girl” or “atta boy?” Bet some of you remember exactly when because many businesses today fail to recognize employees for their good work. So who wants to share credit at a time like this?

If the coworker took some of the credit without lifting a finger for the project, it’s a sad state that a person has to resort to dishonesty. If you face a credit thief, readers and experts recommend:

Let it go.
Plan for next time.
Tell the boss.

Of course, if you have other advice, please share it in the comments, or if you face a different challenge, please tell us about it so we can post it and ask for advice.

Let it go

Whether you believe in it or not, people think karma will restore balance. If not, a reader gives another good reason for taking the high road. “Be gracious and let it go. Perhaps, he’ll owe you one.”

Need more convincing to take this approach? Thomas McClintock, chief operations officer of NSI Partners, says, “Actions speak louder than words in these situations, and people know a lot more than they let on. Spending your time ‘thwarting’ ties you up on the inside and on the outside. Moving on to the next project is better for your organization, your career and your peace of mind. If you want to invest energy in this, be direct with Ed, privately. If you do that selflessly, you’ll both benefit, and so will other legitimate thunder-makers in the future.”

Plan for next time

It may make the situation worse if you try to do something about it instead of just moving on. Aricia E. LaFrance says, “At this point, if you say anything, you’ll probably sound like a tattletale so it’s time to take a step back and plan for next time. In the future, keep all communications to email or text and include a cc to a colleague or manager on anything pertinent as to who does what. This can help keep people honest.”

Donna Lubrano, corporate sales with Improv Asylum, lists six questions to ask before taking action. They will help you think through the situation and be prepared for next time:

What purpose will getting sole credit serve? Make yourself look good? Get a raise? Advance your career? Make the other person look bad? Be careful what you wish for — it might come true!
This person barely wanted to help you this time. What happens if you call him on the credit theft and then need his help again? It will not be pretty.
What does this say about you to the powers that be? Does a great job but can’t share the spotlight with others? Today, companies emphasize collaboration, so think how you want others to perceive you.
Will being a little more generous get you more of what you want? Perhaps, you’ll get more help next time?
Did no one help because staff knew you would take all the credit for yourself and not acknowledge their contributions?
Is this your leadership style? Companies want leaders who can share the spotlight and inspire others to do great work.

“Acknowledge the other’s contribution and move on — and hope it inspires others to work with you so you won’t have to do it alone — that’s what impresses everyone,” Lubrano says.

Tattling doesn’t belong in the workplace. The least you can do is learn from this experience to avoid a “next time.”

Tell the boss

For some, silence might lead to more frustration. Barry Maher suggests telling the boss using an upbeat tone, “‘You know I really enjoyed doing that last project. And to be fair, Ed contributed to it as well. He [detail exactly what Ed did]. So he certainly deserves credit for that.’ No matter what the Polyannas might tell you, truth, goodness and light don’t always win in the end. Sometimes they need a bit of help,” Maher says.

Have you dealt with credit-hogging coworkers? How did you handle it? Please join the discussion in the comments because your voice matters.

Got a challenge of your own you need help solving? Submit your question. You can remain anonymous, if you prefer.

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Previous Issue’s Dilemma:
Am I too strict with our Internet policy?

September 23rd, 2010

At our company, most employees have Internet access at their workstations. Ordinarily, I don’t mind a few minutes of web browsing here and there for a break or even a little personal business. It’s the same as a quick water cooler conversation.

Yet as social media has grown and become a business necessity, more employees have started to hang out on these sites — and not always for work. Am I going overboard in wanting to control the amount of time employees spend online for personal surfing? How can I trust them to get the work done without curtailing this personal web browsing? Or does it really save productivity since they get the mental break they need?

— Nathan

Summary of Advice Received

Big Brother Unwelcome Here

B2B Social Media Digest

Managers constantly battle for their employees’ attention. The opponent isn’t short attention spans or even co-workers. The enemy is technology. Employees have phones with games and Internet connections. If that isn’t bad enough, they have a direct connection to the Internet from their work computers.

As social media and online resources become an important part of doing business, managing Internet use grows difficult. But you may want to rethink your company’s policy after reading what readers and experts have to say about the issue.

Trust employees.
Focus on performance.
Let employees get involved with social media.
Use tools to monitor Internet use.

Of course, if you have other advice, please share it in the comments, or if you’re facing a different challenge, please tell us about it so we can post it and ask for advice.

Trust employees

Sometimes managers need to step back and trust their employees to do the right thing. It doesn’t mean the manager should do nothing.

Kimberly McCabe, marketing consultant, Oshyn, Inc., says, “Employees feel more empowered when their managers trust them to make the right decisions. If you feel they are unclear about how to spend their time on social media sites during working hours, send out a short and sweet email giving ideas on how to make their time effective. Or engage them and ask them to send you their ‘best practices’ for managing their time in social media to share with the whole group.”

Focus on performance

A good manager can determine whether an employee performs below expectations. Lowell Bike, president and co-founder of MyAutoTips.com, lets employees surf the web because the alternative can do more harm. Bike says, “If they do not get their work done, or the quality of the work is subpar, I will know it. When a company spends money in the form of software and on IT personnel who monitor the activities of employees, the company is telling employees that it does not trust them and feels they will not do their jobs unless forced to focus on them.”

Consider that even if a company blocks specific websites, employees can still get to such websites using their phones. So why not build a better relationship with employees by showing them you trust them and let their performance do the talking? “It doesn’t matter whether the person is web surfing, talking at the water cooler or making personal phone calls. What does matter is that she or he gets the job done. If the employee has clear goals and expectations, is engaged at work and is held accountable, the rest falls into place. In short, focus on performance expectations,” says Linda M. Duffy, president, Leadership Habitude.

“If employees fulfill their tasks in a successful way and still have time to vent/recoup/socialize or maybe even discover new useful tools for the business on the Internet, it creates a healthy and productive environment where the employee and (and the boss) is happy,” says Zachary Weiner, CEO of Luxuryreach. Giving employees a little freedom can lead to happiness and job satisfaction. That may be worth the sacrifice of surfing time.

Michelle Gamble-Risley, president of M Communications/3L Publishing, can’t see her employees because her business is virtual. “I don’t care what they spend their days doing as long as they do not miss my deadlines. When I hire people, I am upfront about this requirement,” Gamble-Risley says.

Let employees get involved with social media

Maybe the manager needs to look at social media in a different way. Instead of considering it a time waster, think of it as a way to extend the company’s brand. “Your employees can be your best brand ambassadors, promoting your products and services across their social networks with potential prospects, partners, investors and recruits,” says Rick Clancy, senior director, public relations with Covario.

Clancy explains that involved employees may provide insight from the community that the company would not otherwise know about. “In these times of tight marketing budgets, I would encourage you to empower and trust your employees on the social media front rather than curtail them. As a result, I’m sure you’ll see the benefits greatly outweigh the risks,” Clancy says.

Gamble-Risley, sees social media interactions as positive. “In fact, if they’re on social media and making great business connections, that’s even better for my business.”

Use tools to monitor Internet use

Employees may spend time on websites that have nothing to do with social media. Maybe they’re shopping, taking an online class or catching up with an old friend. These activities are best left for lunch breaks, but some may get carried away as the Internet is quite the temptress.

Obie Fernandez, CEO and founder, Hashrocket, recommends RescueTime. The application can monitor Internet use and report activity by teams and individuals. Fernandez points to a downside of controlling Internet use. “I’ve found that severely curtailing Internet usage at work usually prevents you from hiring and retaining the best and brightest employees out there. It’s better to keep an eye on the situation and deal with problem people individually instead of punishing everyone,” Fernandez says.

Siva Sanmuga, owner, Callture.com, uses a free and open-source solution called Untangle to manage which sites the company allows or doesn’t allow. Sanmuga says, “The most important thing is that the same rule should apply to you as well. Communicate it openly to employees.”

If you take the monitoring route, James C. Roberts advises consulting with a human resources lawyer regarding the implications of using the software because there may be privacy issues.

Managers are not babysitters. They’re leaders who trust employees and empower them to do their best and succeed. Let their work do the talking rather than micromanaging them to the point where it could affect morale. Encouraging them to get involved in social media may do wonders for your organization.

But if employees are not performing, and non-work related activities like surfing the Internet are the cause, you have the option to monitor Internet use. A word of caution: Take care in using such tools because they may lead to negative results.

Have you dealt with Internet policies? How did you handle it? Please join the discussion in the comments because we want to hear from you. Got a challenge of your own you’d like to help solving? Submit your question. You don’t have to share your name if you prefer to remain anonymous.

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Social Media Is Not Just for Smaller Companies

September 23rd, 2010

The ‘Big Boys’ make big noise and get big results
by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest

Although it’s harder to get started because of size, approvals, layers of decision makers and other complications, more big corporations than ever use social media today.

That’s no secret. But how to do it right depends on commitment and strategy.

Frost & Sullivan, a giant company with 40 offices and 1,800 employees uses social media effectively. Its strategies are to start small, be consistent, be relevant and don’t be afraid.

Frost & Sullivan social media strategy

Frost & Sullivan raises awareness of the company and its brand by building a presence on several social media sites and through the company blogs. These activities provide stepping stones toward its target audience that result in new and repeat business.

Sarah Saatzer, corporate communications associate for Frost & Sullivan, lists three audiences the company wants to reach with social media:

Clients. The company updates clients on the analysts’ work and activities.
Prospects. In connecting with potential clients, the company shares industry coverage and builds relationships to generate interest and business.
Media. Frost & Sullivan works to be a resource for reporters by sharing analysts’ coverage areas so the analysts can be a resource for future stories.

The team knows that sometimes prospects won’t contact them. “Even if they see a post and don’t reach out to us, we are still raising awareness of our company and coverage areas that they may reference later or pass along to someone else,” says Saatzer. Social networks provide a starting point for conversations. “We want to let them know what we do and how we can help their company and get them in contact with the appropriate research team to make that happen.”

Building a business case for social media

The drumbeat of social media began growing louder when Jake Wengroff, global director of corporate communications, joined the company in June 2008. At this time, several department heads and executives were asking questions about how to best handle and leverage social media.

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The corporate communications team took the lead, creating identities on Twitter and SlideShare by August 2008, and learned as it went along. The team didn’t need to worry about making a business case since this didn’t involve a purchase order or request for funds.

The team worked to incorporate messages, postings and tweets into its daily work and knew that social media would take time.

Outside of the corporate communications team, the company also launched analyst blogs in January 2010 for clients as “a walled garden,” meaning only clients had access. These blogs went public in August 2010.

The preferred social media tools

Like most successful social media users, Frost & Sullivan combines its social network efforts. For example, when staff posts a presentation on SlideShare, they follow it up with a tweet on the Frost & Sullivan Twitter account and post it on the Facebook fan page wall. The company relies on the following five social resources:

Blogs. Originally, the company managed blogs within a wall, but it recently opened its blogs to the public. Each business unit has its own blog for analysts to share market insights, trends or react to news relevant to the industry.
LinkedIn. While the company doesn’t have a LinkedIn page, many employees promote Frost & Sullivan on their own LinkedIn pages.
Facebook. The company uses a Facebook Fan page for linking to presentations and upcoming analyst briefings and to reference media mentions.
Twitter. The company has a Twitter ID to share the same information offered on Facebook.
Slideshare. The company also has a Slideshare account for posting presentations that analysts create to brief webinars or presentations from tradeshows or events.

Measuring success

The corporate communication team tracks social media statistics weekly:

Facebook Page — Weekly updates on number of fans, page visits, comments and wall posts.
Twitter — Number of followers, tweets and retweets.
Slideshare — Number of uploaded presentations, comments and people who liked each.

These stats continue to support that more people are becoming familiar the brand, and the company’s social media presence is growing.

Advice to businesses

At first, corporate communications faced obstacles that many businesses do when trying to convince executives about the return on investment of social networking. “Resistance came from senior executives concerned that we would release sensitive client information, or premium data, through social networks. However, we assuaged these fears, and they soon realized that clients were increasingly expecting us to maintain a social footprint, especially those in our technology practice — our largest business unit,” says Wengroff.

He and Saatzer offer the following advice to businesses considering social networking:

Start small, be consistent. Don’t jump in and create a handful of IDs for multiple social networks. Instead, start with one account and post new content on a regular basis while responding to comments. With each new identity, ensure that branding remains consistent for easier recognition.
Be relevant. Yes, you need to let others know what your company does, but also tie it to current news and media reports. Blog posts, tweets and other content related to a hot topic often attract the most interest.
Don’t be afraid. Naturally, a company fears that opening itself to the public could lead to negative comments. Saatzer says, “Many times these comments encourage healthy dialogue between our analysts and a company, which sometimes even leads to a sale. It can give the company a chance to let our analysts know what they are up to and give both parties a new perspective on a topic.”

Wengroff adds, “Another obstacle we had to overcome was that managers were concerned we would create and distribute all of this content, without a way to track its performance and ‘convert’ it to sales leads. As the social web is composed mostly of passive browsers, we have had to demonstrate that we do receive some sales leads from our efforts and that individuals are sharing and favoring our content, which are good indicators that we provide valuable, useful information.”

Frost & Sullivan social media upshot

Goal: Frost & Sullivan’s primary goal is to raise awareness of its brand that people associate with market research or consulting services. “Social media gives us a unified presence and gets our name, logo and coverage areas out there,” Saatzer says. “All of our social media identities are branded with the same logo, images and text.”

Results: The team knows social media has paid off because journalists have contacted them in response to tweets or presentations on SlideShare. Frost & Sullivan also knows it reaches potential clients when hearing from people who ask for more information because of a Facebook comment or a SlideShare presentation. Social networks have helped these potential clients learn about the areas that Frost & Sullivan covers. These contacts regularly lead to a sale or a vendor briefing. Wengroff says, “Success in social media often requires the ability to explain the rules of new media to those who are confused or impatient. Stay the course, keep focused and communicate your results, no matter how small.”

The size of the company shouldn’t deter large firms from using social media. Size has its advantages, and social media is no exception. A bigger base of clients and prospects to start with, a recognized name and brand, a large scope of content and events — all allow big companies to start the social media engine faster.

About the author

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans, LinkedIn or on Facebook.

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Previous Issue’s Dilemma:
Help! I need more time!

August 5th, 2010

Since it’s impossible to add another hour to the 24-hour day, I need an alternative. How can I find time to do all the things I need to complete at work? No doubt, many managers/supervisors deal with this challenge. How have you overcome the “I can’t get everything done” syndrome?

— Ed, Manager

Summary of Advice Received

Reclaim Control of Your Job

I Need More Time

If the world could magically add more hours in the day, we’d probably still run into this lack of time problem. Having too much to do is one of those vicious cycles that won’t stop turning until we fix how we manage our work.

“Being up against a no-win situation is depressing and demoralizing. You’ve got to take your power back and restructure your work day so you can accomplish something of value to you and your firm,” says Elene Cafasso, founder and president, Enerpace, Inc.

Ready to shuck depression and take the reins back? While this list works as a step-by-step guide to better managing your work, you can skip some or modify it to your liking:

Make a list
Dump non-essentials.
Prioritize the keepers.
Delegate where possible.
Prepare ahead.
Resist distractions.
Use tools.

Make a list

Stop drowning at the thought of all the things you need to do and make a list of exactly what you must do so you can prioritize tasks. Add everything without judgment.

Meet List Junky Marisha Morris, owner/chief exec designer at Done Beautifully, Inc. “I send myself text messages and use sticky notes, chalk boards and the dry erase board to make my lists.” It doesn’t matter what tool you use, or if you use one or more. Capture those tasks in writing first.

Dump non-essentials

Building habits helps you stick with the program. Yet habits can hold you back as the tasks you do on a regular basis lose importance, such as regularly scheduled meetings and reports.

Brandie Kajino, chief solutionist, SOHO Solutionist, looks deep into the task. Kajino says, “I ask questions, and clarify with people making requests — Is it critical, can it wait or be eliminated? Once in a while, when things get completely out of hand, I sit down and figure out what isn’t helping in the overall picture. Then, I eliminate it.”

“Qualify your sales and think about your bottom line,” says Teri Hurley, owner/operator of Endless Love Travel. “Don’t take on anything that won’t keep you in business, or you soon won’t be. Stick to your area of expertise as you have a better success rate of selling in these areas.”

When someone asks you to do something, and it’s not essential, just say no. Avoid falling into the trap of landing a task you don’t need.

Prioritize the keepers

How do you know where to begin if you don’t know what’s more urgent or has a deadline? Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture, shares a simple four-quadrant system from his famous lecture based on Stephen R. Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Go through your task list and put 1, 2, 3 or 4 next to each one. Then do the most important things first and plan for when you’ll do the least important tasks.

Delegate where possible

Consider delegating tasks, even if you’re not a manager with direct reports. You may be afraid to assign a task to someone else because you know exactly what you want and need. Do you need to attend all the meetings you have? How about sending someone in your place?

Loretta Love Huff, president, Emerald Harvest Consulting, explains how to transfer a task to someone else. “Figure out who would be the best person to take the task. Document the process you use to complete those tasks. Meet with the person and explain what you want him or her to take over and how it will benefit that person (and you) to start doing the task(s). Ask what questions or concerns staff has about taking on the task, then address the questions/concerns,” says Huff.

Prepare ahead

Now that you have a prioritized task list and have dropped unimportant tasks, let someone else take care of others and stay in control by preparing ahead like Hugh M. Ryan, president of Ryan Wellnitz, does. “Every morning, I write down the three things I must accomplish that day, following General Norman Schwarzkopf’s advice. He says he did this every day throughout his career, and required his direct reports to do likewise. I pick out the task I enjoy least and want most to postpone, and do it first (allowing for client-service necessities, of course),” Ryan says.

Huff adds a way to go home happy so you can relax and not worry about anything until the next day. “Before you leave at night, do two things:

Straighten your desk up.
Make a list of your most important items to accomplish the following day.

“When you get in the morning, start working on the list. Don’t open your email. Work on the top two things on your most important list for at least an hour, if not two. If people drop by during those first two hours, unless it’s an emergency (or your boss), ask if you can get back to that person later in the day.”

People have times of the day when they work best and when they don’t work so well. Think about your own energy levels and when you’re most effective with specific types of tasks.

“Arrange activities to take advantage of these rhythms. For example, you might want to return calls first thing in the morning, and catch up on industry news when you have less energy. Creative or analytic work is best done when you’re refreshed and unlikely to be distracted,” says Joellyn Sargent, president, BrandSprout.

Resist distractions

“You’ve got mail.” Ding. New message indicator. Turn off the sounds, visuals, anything and everything that lets you know you have new messages, whether voice mail or email. This works for Daniel K. O’Leary, vice president at LincWare, LLC. “I’ve implemented a system where I only check my email five times a day. I know, it sounds crazy, but it works. I do it at the beginning and end of the day, in the midmorning, after lunch, typically once before going to bed.”

Think about your last few phone calls. During how many of those did you get right to business and hang up as soon as you finished talking business? Of course, you want to be friendly and avoid rudeness. Come up with a few phrases that you can use and make them a habit. “I need to go because I have a meeting to prepare for.” You probably have a meeting to prepare for within the next few months. “Oh, it looks like a coworker needs me. Nice talking to you.”

What about people dropping by your office? Think of phrases you can use for unwanted drop-ins to help you shake the interruption and get back to your task.

Use tools

You may prefer old-fashioned pen and paper, or use an app that synchronizes with your mobile device. Support tools aren’t limited to the list-making kind.

Adding a second monitor can make a difference as it does for your editor. Many do this, including Brandon Laughridge, chief operation officer, RothIRA.com. “Not having to change windows to reference emails or instant messages is a huge time saver. I’m also not afraid to shut off those very nuisances I put on that monitor, things like instant messenger, email, twitter, etc.,” says Laughridge.

You may know about Stephen R. Covey’s book and maybe even David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Writer and Creative Director Kevin Fenton believes that time management issues are procrastination issues in disguise and recommends Neil A. Fiore’s The Now Habit to overcome this.

Chris Curtis, executive director, Web Business Ownership, LLC, automates tasks and uses apps to send stuff to her phone. “Now information is delivered electronically, instead of me having to get it myself,” Curtis says.

Two tools help Akira Hirai, managing director, Cayenne Consulting, LLC, stay organized. Hirai uses Fujitsu ScanSnap, a scanner to convert paper into searchable PDF files, and OneNote, an information organizer.

Do you answer the same questions repeatedly? That sounds like a job for frequently asked questions. Teri Hurley uses the company website to help clients help themselves. The website includes FAQs, testimonials and other resources.

Another way to look at the whole busy, busy picture is to think of it as a mindset. “‘Time’ and ‘being busy’ are mindsets. We are born into these constructs. We’ve made up the notion of time to structure our lives. But since we are defined by two time notations (our date of birth and the date of our passing), we live as if it is real. The key is to establish a more positive relationship with time so you have more of it,” says author Christine Louise Hohlbaum. In other words, “Time rocks!” Now go reward yourself for taking control and go relax a little before you get busy.

About the editor

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans.

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Previous Dilemma:
Burning inside instead of burning bridges

July 12th, 2010

Burning on the Inside

After over five years of service, I recently “retired” from a company to manage my own business full-time. I gave the standard two-week notice and started preparing to help with the transition. The company cut my two weeks short, and my manager was disrespectful to me during the process.

Since then, I’ve been furious with the manager and the situation. I did the best I could to serve the company and was loyal and honest. Having never received closure, I’ve been careful because I don’t believe in burning bridges.

The company did nothing illegal, so this doesn’t call for a lawsuit. And I might need a good recommendation from my manager someday. I think some action will help me get over this, but what? Should I talk to the director or someone else? I’m still burning inside despite trying to forget about the company. Nothing works. How do you work past these nasty feelings?

— Gone, but not forgotten

Summary of Advice Received

Four Ways to Find Delicious Zen

B2B Social Media Digest

With that in mind, readers and experts provide four ways to deal with the resentment:

Look at the situation from a different perspective.
Pour your energy into the new job.
Write a letter.
Let time do the trick.

Of course, if you have other advice, please share it in the comments, or if you’re facing a different challenge, please tell us about it so we can post it and ask for advice.

Look at the situation from a different perspective

Even if you’re the kind of person who tries to consider all views, it’s easy to fall into the trap of seeing only one side. The situation could be the result of company policy, as Monique Ramsey, director of patient services, shares a lesson learned from hiring and firing class. “They told us to NEVER accept the two-week notice from an employee. The reasons were that so many things can go wrong during that two weeks — they could take your client list or sabotage your business in another way, or get paid to do nothing because they have mentally ‘checked out,’ or (insert problematic issue here) so hopefully this will help you feel better and not take it personally. They were just going by the book,” Ramsey says.

Not all readers believe that giving the standard notice is always the right thing to do. The length of the notice varies from country to country. Jillian Zavitz, TalktoCanada.com programs manager, believes employees should give the required notice. Sometimes she takes them on it, and other times she lets them go early. Why let them go early?

“They don’t want to be there and won’t put their all into the job. It’s important for me to have employees on board who will put 110 percent into their job no matter what. To get over these feelings, just think about the good times you had at the company and understand that sometimes it’s better (if they have the personnel) to take you out immediately,” says Zavitz.

Stephanie Jeffery Carlino, co-founder of the Long Island Breakfast Club, agrees that the company did the employee a favor. She had to give an eight-week notice when she resigned from a job. “It was the longest eight weeks of my life; they froze me out from major decisions. Be grateful they let you out early, to have done that for me would have been a godsend,” Carlino says.

Wendie A. Howland of Howland Health Consulting, Inc. flips the situation upside down. “You were dissed by your old manager and furious over this. Did you stop to think that perhaps s/he thought you had dissed the company that treated you well for five years and was furious about that?” says Howland.

Pour your energy into the new job

What could be better revenge than becoming successful in your new job? Since you own the business, you probably have more freedom. “No doubt your manager was pissed off at your escape to freedom. Feel sorry for them and go have a latte at your leisure and go see an occasional movie at lunchtime. The world is your oyster while they are sitting in their cubbies,” writes Leslie Singer, co-founder and chief creative officer, HS Dominion.

A reader suggests to smile and take responsibility for your own success. “Their behavior is a reflection of themselves and not you. Maybe they already realize how much they’ll miss your work? In any event, be sure to send your old team PR from your new business, and irregular reminders of how well you are doing,” the reader says.

Dan Michalko provides a tip for planning on your success. “Buy three thank-you cards: one for your manager, and one for the managers two levels above your manager. Then write the cards out envisioning your success in six months. The note should state something like ‘I’d like to circle back and say thanks for cutting me loose prematurely after providing you the courtesy of a two-week notice. While the disrespect demonstrated by my manager, xxx, during my notice period after investing five years with the company was unfortunate, it provided me the impetus to focus on building my business.

“‘As a result, I am now in a position to enable others to succeed. It is my sincere hope that your company has developed an exit interview process to capture lessons learned from anyone leaving your business.’ And for the levels above your manager include: ‘Please feel free to call me should you have questions, or if I can assist your company with any of your needs in the areas of xxx, or xxxx,’” says Michalko.

Write a letter

You’ve probably heard advice along the lines of write a letter and then burn it. Readers like Russ Seel, founder and CEO of RH Positive, offer another take on this approach. “Write the offenders a letter thanking them for the good experiences you did have and wish them well in the future. You’ll be surprised/amazed at the change in your attitude and likely theirs as well. The good repercussions are eternal,” says Seel.

Linda Konstan, Sensible Human Resources Consulting LLC, believes an exit letter is something any resigning employee may want to do. “I would write a strong ‘exit’ letter (even after the fact) and ask that they place it in your personnel file. That letter will thank everyone for the opportunities they gave you and list all your accomplishments,” Konstan says.

Harley Rivet of Rivet Consulting has been through the situation before and has avoided saying bad things about the former employer. Rivet applies the getting down your feelings while not sharing them with anyone approach. “They treated me wrong so don’t I have a right to be mad? They were the perpetrators, and I was the victim. I feel violated. I have found writing about the experience a bit therapeutic since it helps get the feelings out without publicly sharing the writings. I will always have a scar to remind me but think of it as something that gives me character and more life experience,” says Rivet.

Let time do the trick

Time heals all wounds. Maybe this situation requires more time than usual. John Barnes quotes the 12-Step Program, “‘Time takes time.’ Just because you know how you want to feel, and that you will feel that way eventually, doesn’t mean you’re ready to feel it now. Cut yourself some slack. Be bitter if you have to be until it’s time to be over it,” says Barnes.

How about a good laugh? Deepak Gupta recommends eBossWatch, a site devoted to the worst bosses. Granted, it’s a serious website where you can search for bad bosses, but hang out long enough, and you’ll start laughing.

“The closure you are looking for is inside of you. You are the one who needs to close that chapter. Remember all the good that occurred over so many years, not the end,” says Kathi Elster of K Square Enterprises.

Have you been through a situation where you left a company on bad terms? How did you handle it? What’s your advice for people in this situation? Please join the discussion in the comments because we want to hear from you.

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Big Company. Personal Touch.

July 8th, 2010

Social media gives B2B firms a human voice
by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest

Despite the Internet’s vast resources, people don’t always find what they need, especially when searching for obscure information or something that doesn’t yet exist. Consider an old song from your teen years that keeps playing in your mind. Maybe you only remember a few words, not phrases or lines. If you spend some time, you may find it buried in the information highway haystack.

Yet if you use Facebook and Twitter, you will most likely find that tidbit much faster. In social media, people want to help and respond to queries. They respond to these queries with valuable information, and post blog entries about the subject. Now, search engines have two new places to go when someone does a query.

One company has turned “It’s never been done before” types of problems into solved ones by sharing expertise in social media. Emerson Process Management supports organizations with complicated technology and engineering problems that need solving. Social media gives Emerson an accessible and fast way to reach those who need answers.

Imagine the knowledge that Emerson has with 250 manufacturing locations around the world, 730 patents in 2009 alone and servicing over 150 countries. Social media acts as a bridge that connects the large company’s expertise with the people needing the knowledge. Once content appears on a social network, search engines become aware of it. As search engines discover the knowledge, it brings the company another step closer to customers and prospects.

Emerson Process Management social media strategy

Emerson wants to bring its expertise to the surface where customers and prospects can find it. While the traditional approach of connecting and interacting with others works, it takes more time than using social media. Furthermore, people who have problems that need solving don’t have time to wait until they meet the right person.

The company entered social media by determining its business objectives and communications objectives for key audiences and then coming up with the message and desired outcome. As a result, Emerson has established processes for all of its communications. “Social media-related initiatives are similar in starting with the message phase. We want the participant to use his or her own voice instead of highly processed and tested messaging,” says Jim Cahill, head of social media and chief blogger at Emerson Process Management.

Cahill lists four reasons for motivating your talent to get to the surface quickly by participating in social media:

Gain more visibility. Encouraging your experts to come to the surface through social media will speed up others finding them.
Listen in real time. Social media is two-way media that allows people to reach out to others and respond. And it all happens in real time.
Expose expertise. Many refer to this as “thought leadership.” When your talent goes out there and joins the social media fray, they let their knowledge speak for them and the company. This leads to building trust, which leads to business opportunities.
Find answers fast. Whether the experts or prospects need answers, social media speeds the problem-solving process. Tweet a question, and you can get answers within seconds. Add the answers to Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs and other social media resources, and Google and other search engines will pull them up.

The company is in the business of services, which isn’t tangible. “The intent is to increase our presence at the surface to improve our ability to listen, talk and engage with customers and prospective customers,” says Cahill.

Building a business case for social media

The journey began six years ago when Cahill and co-worker, Deb Franke, noticed blog posts appeared high up on search engine results, especially for engineers’ typical “how-to” queries. The timing worked out because the company brought together two business automation systems and a solutions business. Because of this, Cahill and Franke recognized that blogs offered a natural way to add visibility to the company’s experts.

The foray into social media started with one blog in 2006. Cahill worked with legal, human resources and senior management before launching Emerson Process Experts blog. “After it proved itself as a way to provide visibility of Emerson’s expertise to those using search engines to find it, we embarked on more social media-related activities over time,” Cahill says. Today, the company has seven blogs, many LinkedIn and Facebook groups and employees using Twitter.

“Social media helps us reach these goals by putting the people behind the technologies and engineering where they can more closely listen, connect and respond to customers and prospective customers,” says Cahill.

Measuring success

The most important metric is the number of contacts that come through the blog. Emerson Process Experts blog contains a sidebar with contact information. Cahill wants people to contact him for answers to issues they face. He connects them with the right people in the organization. Metrics include tracking the following:

Contacts.
Monthly visits to the blog.
RSS subscriptions.
Visits to content sites with view counts (YouTube, Flickr, SlideShare, etc.).

Every post comes with a CAPTCHA-protected email link to the featured expert. Tracking contacts helps him connect sales opportunities with the blog rather than focusing on conversion because B2Bs have long and complicated sales cycles.

While this may not have the hard numbers many executives want to see, Emerson Process Management has moved Cahill into the new role of social media head.

Advice to businesses

For B2B companies looking to get into social media, Cahill recommends starting with business objectives. “If they are sound, you’ll overcome objectives from legal, human resources and senior management. Patience and persistence are critical. It took us two years from the idea to realization,” he says.

Emerson had to work around the status quo to get over its biggest social media hurdle. This meant pointing to other companies like IBM and Sun that used social media with success and sharing their social media policies. Again, remembering and repeating the business objective to raise the visibility of the company’s experts remained key. “The final piece, courtesy of some wisdom provided by business blogger Steve Rubel, was to prove it internally,” says Cahill.

The team demonstrated post visibility by building inside-the-firewall blogs and using a custom Google search appliance to show results. Worrying about privacy and legal risks is not an excuse. This concerned many people when email became more mainstream. Yet, email turned into a business activity that few could do without.

Emerson Process Management Social Media Elements

Goal: The primary goal for Emerson is to solve problems as part of its “Consider it solved” promise. Social media gives the company a place to connect with those looking for answers.

Social media tools: Emerson uses social media to make it easier for people to find experts. Communities also open channels for peer-to-peer knowledge exchange. The company shares content using the following eight resources:

Blogs: Blogs give Emerson a forum for highlighting the expertise across the company. Staff uses multiple blogs to focus on different areas of the company’s wide knowledge and industries. The life sciences industry blog and data centers blog attract different markets with different problems.
YouTube and Screencast: Staff posts videos that share expertise. These videos also appear on the blog.
Podcasts: Uploading blog podcasts to iTunes and MP3 sites provides greater reach.
LinkedIn: The Emerson brand has a LinkedIn group so users and experts can collaborate, ask and answer questions, share ideas and network.
Flickr: Staff posts images and photos to share knowledge and expertise.
Facebook: Several Emerson brands also have their own Facebook groups that lists basic information.
Twitter: Company employees and brands use Twitter to mention new posts and connect with customers, prospects and trade press community members.
Private community: The company runs a forum on its website.

These resources improve the company’s standings with search engines. The content they create in social media lets experts demonstrate competence, trust, commitment and creativity, all required factors when you’re in the services business. As a result, they can grow the business.

Results: In three years, the blog has grown from 5,000 monthly visits to over 50,000. Flickr and YouTube alone receive almost 10,000 monthly views. In one year, the company’s Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts went up almost 3,000. These numbers jumped almost another 1,000 in six months.

Cahill receives 10 to 15 contacts per week. Some are support related, some are sales opportunities or requests for quotes and the occasional, “I didn’t know Emerson did this. Can you send someone to discuss our application right away?” One of these occasionals was for a “greenfield” plant that could lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in automation equipment and project services.

Remember, the B2B sales cycle is long and complex. With millions of dollars in the balance, landing these occasional contacts says that Emerson is doing something right with its social media program.

The message is clear. Using multiple social networks helps the company reach more people while boosting the company’s findability in search engines.

About the author

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans, LinkedIn or on Facebook.

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How to Reach a Difficult Audience through Content

June 16th, 2010

Consulting firm marketing role focuses on connectivity
Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest,
interviews Dale Wolf, Healthcare Marketing Consultant

Reach a Difficult Audience through Content

The healthcare industry faces a unique challenge, finding ways to cut costs without affecting the quality of patient care. Sacrificing care means the difference between life and death. Furthermore, hospital decision-makers are so busy that they have built shells around them to protect their time and sanity.

So how does a consulting firm targeting this market break through hospital senior leaders’ protective shells, earn their trust, gain credibility and build a relationship? The way to go is to reach the prospects where they are and use content focused on their needs not the company’s own. That’s what works for Compass Clinical Consulting.

Before charging ahead with social media, Compass needed to update its brand. It changed the company’s name from Compass Group to Compass Clinical Consulting so its clients and prospects know exactly what the company does. This, combined with the customer-centric approach, has helped Compass accelerate brand awareness in a short time.

Compass Clinical Consulting social media strategy

Compass strives to develop useful content for hospital leaders to improve how they run their hospitals. This marketing strategy includes content that reinforces Compass’ brand, establishes credibility and trust, and encourages future clients to engage with employees to see if the Compass approach fits their needs. This ties in with social media because all content appears in direct mail, blogs, Web sites, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, news releases, articles and the company’s online news room.

All of these messages support the company’s brand promise: “We help hospital leaders reduce the cost of delivering safe, quality healthcare.” Its social media strategy is to keep it simple by focusing on social media that hospital marketing departments use. Dale Wolf, director of education and information services, reports that about 10 percent of the company’s market segment uses social media, making Compass an early entrant into social media. “Being in on the ground floor is giving us the experience to master these media as more hospitals come on board,” he says.

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Besides that, the company appears on page one of search engine results for its keyword phrases. Social media is positively affecting its search engine findability.

Because the consulting business is a relationship business, social media fit the company’s business model. Wolf explains, “We must communicate with people busier than in any other market segment I have ever worked. This is a tough wall to crack. Building awareness for hospital successes will help. Until then, we send our content out via every reasonable medium on the premise that a good percentage will get through the barriers.” The executives make up one segment; the company also works to connect with news reporters who cover healthcare.

In the beginning, Compass limited its scope for social media by starting with blogging, Twitter and LinkedIn. After becoming comfortable with these, they are planning to expand their social media scope. The PR director also manages other uses of social media on his own.

Building a business case for social media

Compass has always included social media in its marketing plan. Part of that could be because of Wolf’s success in using social media in his previous job. He has also added social media to sections in the marketing plan that covers public relations because social media ties into public relations.

As far as its business case goes, Compass management doesn’t believe that senior leaders use social media, and the older managers haven’t made it a habit to use social media. However, they know that future leaders will enter the business with social media skills. “So some of the decision-making on this was faith on the part of our senior managers. They do clearly see how it impacts Google search, and ‘findability’ is one of our key marketing themes so that helped in the rollout,” Wolf says.

The company needs to reach people including board members, CEOs, COOs, other executives and quality directors who work long hours. They’re very tough people to reach. “This makes it very difficult to deliver a message with sufficient frequency so the message will stick. Every touchpoint becomes more critical,” he says.

Measuring success

The company started its social media program 18 months ago with limited resources, so it has not arrived at a point to build a comprehensive metrics program. But Compass still does the following activities to measure its success:

Track news release distribution through MarketWire.
Track Web and blog traffic using WordPress stat tools.
Track email open and clickthroughs.
Experiment with Google Analytics.

“The single most important metric is how many discussions we generate with senior hospital leaders. We always ask callers or other contacts how they learned about Compass, and we identify sales leads that result from particular campaigns or from Google search. The resulting sales validate that we are moving in the right direction,” says Wolf. (He recommends a Compass article that explains how social media helps the bottom line.)

Advice to businesses

Social media is not a magic bullet that drives sales for the firm. It is a bullet. “Carry a six-shooter or an automatic weapon that lets you shoot more than one bullet. The Lone Ranger’s silver bullet worked in the Wild West but not in the hectic marketplace we all now reside in.” says Wolf. He advises businesses to consider these four activities when looking into a social media strategy:

1. Work with a consultant who knows social media. The consultant should know how social media integrates with publicity, online search and Web traffic generation.

2. Jump in slow. Don’t try to do everything at once because swallowing the sun is a tough act.

3. Start with your customer-centric content strategy. Make the commitment to generate content on a constant basis. Marketing is no longer about advertising (not to say advertising is not important); it is about doing a lot of things right and realizing that customer-centric marketing is about helping customers learn how to do their work better. When you help customers, they will remember you.

4. Pull is better than push. Since pull is less predictable, it requires courage of conviction, consistency and constancy.

“When marketers look at social media as an end to themselves, they are making a mistake. Social media are simply a cloud-based content distribution system that is remarkably fast, cost efficient and hopefully viral,” Wolf says. “We have as Robert Frost wrote, ‘miles to go before we sleep,’ but we are making rapid progress.”

Compass Clinical Consulting Social Media Elements

Goal: The primary goal for Compass is to complete consulting engagements so clients have a successful experience with positive, measurable and sustainable results.

Social media tools: Compass uses social media to distribute its content in a variety of ways and to connect with its hard-to-reach target market:

1. Content distribution. Marketing coordinates with each practice leader to produce content, including white papers, blog posts and Web content. They distribute white paper content by (1) sending the printed white papers directly to decision-makers by postal mail or PDF versions by email, or (2) sending a promotional letter that encourages decision-makers to visit the Web site and download the content. Compass posts all content in its Knowledge Center where spiders can detect it and make it available for online searches to improve search presence.

2. Blog: Staff repurposes white papers for the blog and manages three blogs.

3. Twitter: The company automatically tweets content on corporate (@compasscc) and personal Twitter accounts. Tweets consist of headlines aimed mainly at news media.

4. LinkedIn: Staff posts content in discussion groups on LinkedIn.

5. YouTube: The company posts all videos on its corporate YouTube account.

6. Flickr: Compass posts all images and photos on its Flickr account.

7. Social bookmark sites: The company also links to content on social bookmarking sites like FirendFeed, Stumbleupon and Delicious.

8. News releases: Staff creates news releases as content for posting on news release and online news sites, national media and local media, resulting in highly targeted, mass distribution of content.

The prime strategy for Compass is to create useful content. The use of media — traditional or social — is simply a means of distributing content as broadly as possible.

“We want to be seen for the thought-leaders that we are, creating and distributing relevant and useful content that helps leaders run better, more efficient hospitals. Social media is an extension that gives us more channels in which to talk with hospital leaders, at a relatively low cost,” Wolf says.

Results: When Compass Clinical Consulting started the transition to social media, the Web site received an average of 500 visits a month. The company now averages almost 10,000 visitors plus 4,000 RSS feed subscribers. Page views surpass 40,000 a month. Building traffic to registration pages is the central focus of all Compass campaigns.

Before implementing the program, a “Compass Group” Google search yielded one result in the first four pages. Now Compass “owns” all the results on the first four Google pages. The only exception is an occasional mention of other companies with Compass in their name. The company’s focus and persistent search engine optimization strategy — using key word phrases to improve search engine page results — has led to several client engagements.

One tweet in Twitter compelled Fox Business News to call Compass for a TV story on healthcare reform. A single story builds credibility and provides publicity.

About the author

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans, LinkedIn or on Facebook.

About Dale Wolf

As president of Wolf Blumberg Krody Marketing, he and his two partners formalized their customer-centric approach into a data-driven methodology of direct marketing – coined as “contextual marketing.” This methodology led to growth for many national brands, hospitals and healthcare insurance companies.

After selling his ownership in WBK, Dale joined Cincom Systems, Inc. to lead product development of Web-based software to replicate his contextual marketing methodology and spearheaded customer-centric marketing strategy for many of Cincom’s brands. Dale was also an early adopter of blogging and other social media.

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Previous Dilemma:
How can I make a difference with my performance reviews?

June 15th, 2010

Performance Review

In my 20 years in the workforce, it’s surprising that performance reviews haven’t made a difference for my staff. I’m trying to turn this around, so I’ve read up on how to make the most of performance reviews. Yet, I struggle with finding an effective process that benefits the employee, employer and manager.

Do you use the performance review tool, or do you do your own thing? What’s the best way to do a constructive performance review that benefits both employees and management?

— Perplexed about performance

Summary of Advice Received

Do a 360 on Performance Reviews

B2B Social Media Digest

It may happen in June in one company. For another, it’s September. No matter the month, almost every company has a dreaded month where employees and managers fear the annual performance review.

Even when things go well for hard-working employees and managers, the performance review becomes a tradition of wasting everyone’s time while satisfying the company’s need to have it done. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Most employees want to grow and feel challenged. Effective performance reviews help them take the next step in their jobs rather than simply receive a business report card. Good performance reviews and consistent follow-up can motivate employees throughout the year. Readers and experts provide excellent advice to address this difficult yet important challenge.

They recommend that you stop wasting time with performance reviews and turn them into useful tools with these four steps:

Get the company on the same page.
Develop your own review process.
Check in more often.
Change the focus of the review.

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As always, if you have more advice, share it in the comments, or if you’re facing a different challenge, please share your dilemma so we can ask your peers for their advice.

Get the company on the same page

The problem with performance reviews is that the entire company may not buy into them. Or maybe the review process varies by department or manager. If the process lacks consistency across the company, it does no one good. When few support the performance process, it becomes a useless tool.

If possible, have the company investigate performance review processes to find what works best and get buy-in on the best process, from executives on down to recent college graduates.

Develop your own review process

You may not be in a position to change the company’s performance review process. Why not create your own? “Either start from scratch or customize a standardized form. To be effective, a performance review needs to cover specific aspects of a specific position,” says Barbara Farfan, management and operations consultant, Authentic Communications. No one says you can’t develop one and then fill in the blanks on the company’s official form.

For those not wanting to start from scratch, Michelle Braden, president and CEO of MSBCoach, LLC, suggests investing in a behavior tool like EQ, DISC, Emergenetics or StrengthsFinder.

Carol Stewart, adjunct professor of management at Southern CT State University, uses Manage By Objectives (MBO). “I create a spreadsheet with my goals in one column, and action items and due dates (for each goal) in the next two columns. The last column shows any dependencies or obstacles. This process takes the ‘subjectivity’ out of performance reviews,” says Stewart.

You can work with the current system using Slaughter Development, LLC’s Robby Slaughter’s approach. “Instead of performance reviews, employees and managers ought to mutually define forward-looking performance objectives that include fixed targets tied to future compensation — and honor them.”

Check in more often

A typical performance review process consists of two meetings: the goal-setting and the review. Some companies combine both in a single meeting, and follow the review with setting next year’s goals.

Having more check-ins helps reinforce the goals and progress. “To help the review ‘stick,’ it is necessary to maintain a consistent message between evaluations. Additionally, people can only change if they know how. An evaluation reveals the issues, not how to solve them. Provide educational or situational opportunities directed at resolving the shortcomings identified in the evaluation,” says Greg Stacy, senior account manager with Single Source Systems Inc.

Too often, employees don’t know where they stand when the performance review time arrives. That should not be the case. Instead, the performance review should summarize what the employee and manager already know and contain no surprises. The summary captures all the conversations and documentation the employee and managers have had throughout the year.

Linda Konstan, Sensible Human Resources Consulting, does weekly check-ins. “Instead of basing everything on the ‘annual performance evaluation,’ I prefer to use a critical incident log at least once weekly. This tool documents the good, bad and ugly and forces conversations with staff,” says Konstan.

You could also check in every four to six weeks like Lunell Haught does. “Performance reviews are a waste of time without follow-up. I ask, ‘What can I do to help you succeed?’ and then do it or tell why I can’t. I see appraisals as a conversation, not a judgment!” Haught says.

Change the focus of the review

Meeting more often to discuss an employee’s progress is a great start. A manager can motivate an employee to change by focusing on the positives and involving the employee in the process. One reader suggests having employees list their responsibilities and the best way to meet those responsibilities. The manager can respond with a positive by focusing on what the employees do well and follow that with areas of improvement or drastic changes necessary.

Obviously, you need to point out performance weaknesses. “Reinforce what you want people to keep doing! Negative feedback, to be useful, must focus on things people can change,” says Stephen Balzac, president of 7 Steps Ahead, LLC. “You’re not a team player” offers no useful information. Be specific such as “In the last three meetings, I observed you turning every discussion into a win/lose fight, and then shouting everyone down. I am concerned that this will destroy our effectiveness as a team,” Balzac says.

The employee and manager need to discuss, agree and document steps to help the team, department and company meet their goals. The employee needs to know what the manager expects, but it’s up to the employee to figure out the how. End the conversation with a positive.

Instead of focusing on the infamous SMART goals, aka specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timeframe, Phyllis Harber-Murphy of More Than 9 2 5 Virtual Assistance suggests thinking HARD.

Heartfelt: My goals will enrich the lives of others, whether colleagues and peers or the general public.
Animated: I can vividly imagine how great I will feel once I accomplish these goals.
Required: My goals are aligned with and will have a direct impact on my company’s main objectives.
Difficult: I will have to stretch myself (take courses, learn new techniques, etc.) to accomplish my goals.

While changing the process may not be possible, you can make the best of it with what you have by meeting more often and focusing on the good while identifying areas for growth and improvement. With a little practice, maybe the whole team will change its outlook on performance reviews, knowing they result in more communication and growth.

What do you think? Any gaps? Disagree? Join the discussion in the comments.

About the editor

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans.

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Capture B2B Leads through Social Media and Brilliant Videos

May 13th, 2010

Supply chain management company uses personality to charm prospects
by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest

Speak E.A.S.Y.

Bring together the devil in Reaper, a smarmy guy from The Usual Suspects and a large enterprise resource planning (ERP) company, and you have a business-to-business company that knows how to have fun while teaching. It’s part of the learn, laugh, share and connect philosophy that the supply chain management company Kinaxis applies to social media.

Just For Kix Productions, the alias for Kinaxis, produces the show with the tagline of “the comedy series BigERP doesn’t want you to watch,” Suitemates, starring actors Ray Wise of Reaper and Twin Peaks and Kevin Pollack of The Usual Suspects and Shark. The show offers a creative and comedic way to raise awareness of customer frustrations with ERP vendors.

Just for Kix Productions also produces Late Late Supply Chain Show, Uncle Jay Explains and Married to the Job. All of these touch on topics related to the industry. The videos make up one part of the company’s successful social media and online marketing modus operandi.

Not only does Kinaxis go all in with its professionally produced videos, but it also brings in outside experts for guidance to ensure the company ventures beyond its blog and into the realm of social media with a full deck.

The Kinaxis social media strategy

The overall business objective for Kinaxis is to grow by increasing its market share and business momentum. Raising awareness in target markets, strengthening customer relationships and generating business leads are the social media gears, or goals, in the company’s social machine to reach its objective.

The goals, in turn, led to the development of the social media strategy, which contains three parts:

Engage the broader supply chain community. This builds presence and credibility as employees provide valuable insights and join conversations. “It’s not about selling our product; thought leadership is first and foremost. Our blog is an example of that — you rarely see us mentioning, let alone plugging, our product,” says Kirsten Watson, director of Kinaxis corporate marketing. “We feel that talking about the industry challenges and solutions will, by default, prove out the Kinaxis value proposition.”
Establish a corporate culture of engagement. Social media is not solely a marketing department endeavor. It’s a corporate-wide engagement that leverages many company experts. “Quite a few have embraced this as part of their daily routine, and that’s the goal. It’s an evolution that takes time. The company has established incentive programs to encourage contributions to the blog, discussion forums and other mediums,” Watson says.
Develop the company’s personality. Kinaxis has discovered that customers and prospects appreciate the company’s sense of humor. “It’s often the hook that gets people to visit our community/blog, etc. and learn more about us,” says Watson. The company produces videos using comedy while telling a story around a business problem such as the failure of ERP vendors in solving supply chain management problems.

“We believe that our social media engagement is the entire company’s responsibility,” Watson says. “With such a heavy emphasis on thought-leadership, we need to make sure our social media strategy is inclusive of our internal subject-matter experts. Most everyone can and should contribute. Of course, it’s a never-ending journey of adjustment and improvement.”

The social media strategy focuses on building an online destination for supply chain management professionals, starting conversations around problems and solutions, boosting awareness with influencers and creating pull by having prospects who hear good things about the company come to Kinaxis. Together, these activities support the company’s effort to influence prospects.

Building a business case for social media

Kinaxis had to learn how social media can work for B2B since it’s not as intuitive as for business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. Rather than spending a lot of time trying to navigate the Web 2.0 waters with a blindfold, especially in a niche market, the company hired Forrester Research.

Forrester studied Kinaxis’ target market to see where and what it did online. The audience consisted of supply chain practitioners and influencers, covering prospects, customers, academia, industry analysts, media and thought leaders. The result showed the target audience used social media for decision-making, support and references. “Knowing that supply chain management professionals are consuming — and participating in — social media for work purposes gave us justification to incorporate social media into our business,” Watson says.

Working with Forrester, the company developed its social media strategy using Forrester’s POST model: people, objective, strategy and technology. Everything Kinaxis does today in social media comes from the plan including joining existing supply chain communities and creating its own community.

Measuring success

The company says that determining success has both hard and soft results. For the tangibles, Kinaxis looks at the following metrics:

Page views and unique page views.
Referrals.
Impressions.
Online clicks.
Email open, click-through and unsubscribe rates.
Conversion rates.
Community membership.
Interaction and word-of-mouth mentions (blog comments, response to LinkedIn postings, tweets, retweets, etc.).
Tracking the source of all new leads to a specific program or activity.

Although these have value, they don’t tell the whole story. “The softer side of this is asking ourselves: Do we feel that people know us better?” Watson says. Employees look at whether prospects, industry colleagues, competitors and the press know or talk about the company.

Advice to businesses

“I don’t believe there is a choice of whether or not a company should consider social media — the choice is how it should participate. If your audience is online researching, talking, making choices, then that’s where you need to be, too. Some companies are scared to venture in uncharted (and largely uncontrolled) waters,” says Watson. She recommends following Forrester Research POST methodology, which contains the three steps:

Identify where your audience is online. If you jump into Twitter and your audience isn’t there, that’s wasted time. Find them, and see what they’re doing.
Define objectives. After knowing where your audience is and what it does, move forward with developing a strategy.
Select the best tools. With a defined audience and strategy, you are in a better position to pick the tools that will benefit your company the most.

Kinaxis at a glance

Goal: The Kinaxis main objective is to grow. Using social media helps the company raise awareness with target markets, strengthen customer relationships and generate qualified leads.

Social media tools: Kinaxis uses diverse tools to engage in conversations and share experiences, such as the following six:

Blog: Kinaxis started its 21stcenturysupplychain.com blog in 2005. It has 18 contributors and adds three new posts every week on average. All blog posts are syndicated to the Kinaxis LinkedIn groups, IndustryWeek and ITToolbox forums.
LinkedIn: Company-wide contributions to LinkedIn Groups go to over 50 supply chain management discussion groups on a daily basis.
Twitter: The company has both corporate and individual accounts.
Company-run community: The Supply Chain Expert Community serves as a social platform for manufacturing and supply chain management professionals to meet, learn, share and connect with colleagues.
Social media news releases: The company uses social media to distribute news releases, which not only helps with search engine optimization (SEO) but also potential mentions on social media.
Web site: The Web site offers many ways to share the content so visitors can retweet in Twitter, email a page or post on another social network. It also has multimedia elements and maximum SEO.

“Social media is not a collection of new tools for you to blast out your marketing messages. They are tools for knowledge sharing and relationship building,” Watson says. “If you misuse them, people will call you out because the power is with the people, and they have a loud voice and a large audience.”

Social media offers endless opportunities that can eat up resources. To be successful in social media means producing lots of content on a regular basis. Watson says, “Social media success relies on consistent and thoughtful engagement, and that takes time and effort. You need to figure out the ‘must-do’ vs. the ‘nice-to-do.’ We have implemented our social media efforts in stages. It’s better to tackle a few key things and get them right, than jump in and try to do it all from the start.”

The company repurposes its content in a variety of ways. It may create a presentation that it blogs and tweets about, then create an interview from the content and start a conversation in the forums. Taking a phase approach also provides time to learn lessons and tweak them for future phases. B2Bs should consider taking a company-wide approach to share the workload while ensuring no one burns out and fails to deliver value. Watson says, “The bottom line is you get what you give. Have honest intentions and be true to them.” Then go after your goals.

In fact, everything Kinaxis does revolves around SEO, one of the most important components in the company’s success.

Although social media efforts take place throughout the company, marketing is a big player in the social media strategy. “Marketing takes the role of regularly feeding ideas and opportunities to the subject-matter experts. Long-term planning happens in the way of an internal editorial calendar that schedules out themes and deliverables by our group of experts,” Watson says.

Results: In 2008, Kinaxis already had six figures of pageviews. One year later, the company more than doubled the pageviews. Kinaxis launched its community in the second half of 2009 and had an estimated 106,000 pageviews — and that’s after launching and using social media. Yet, it still managed to up the numbers by 20,000 in the first half of 2010. Finally, in 2008, it had over 13,000 leads. By 2009, that climbed to over 42,000 leads. Conclusion: Social media clearly works for Kinaxis.

About the author

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans, LinkedIn or on Facebook.

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Previous Dilemma:
How do you deal with a blockhead boss?

May 12th, 2010

Dealing with a Blockhead Boss

We have a decent team, but we can’t make things happen smoothly. My boss assigns irrelevant tasks to my team. We put in a lot of overtime because of his idiocy. The guy is a joke around the department, and everyone except the executive team seems to know that. Should we confront the executive director, go to the CEO (the director’s boss) or live with it in silence?

— Tracy, Manager

Summary of Advice Received

Get a Grip on a Bad Boss
Six ways to tackle the problem
by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest

Don’t believe that a blockhead executive can land such a high position? Matt Scherer, president, Scherer Communications, tells his story to show how management gets away with bad behavior. He was an editor of a newspaper nicknamed Puzzle Page. After production completed a page, Scherer and his boss Bill checked for errors and then verified the corrections.

Unfortunately, Bill never checked the corrections. One time, Scherer told Bill that the corrections needed verifying and that he would stay behind to do the work. When that didn’t work, Scherer went to Bill’s boss who happened to be good friends with Bill. Bill’s boss believed he couldn’t fix the proofing problem.

Two weeks after Bill left, Scherer took over his editing duties. He changed the proofing process, and the newspaper had its first error-free publication. His commander, one up from Bill’s boss, asked what happened. After conversing, Scherer learned that Bill had blamed him for the problems.

Having a bad boss is an icky situation, at any point in your career. Readers and experts offer ways to cope.

Remember no one likes everyone.
Do a self-review.
Take a positive approach.
Meet with the boss.
Go to the “grand boss.”
Accept the situation.

Remember no one likes everyone

You don’t like everyone you meet, and even the nicest people encounter others who dislike them for no explainable reason. Marcia Yudkin retells a story in The Marketing Minute newsletter as told by The New Yorker’s cartoon editor Robert Mankoff in his book, The Naked Cartoonist: A New Way to Enhance Your Creativity.

“Cartoonist Robert Mankoff once set out to find a cartoon that nearly everyone who had any sense of humor would find funny.

“He sent what he thought was his own very best cartoon to 2,000 men and women, asking them to rate it from 1 (completely unfunny) to 10 (extremely funny). About 80 percent rated Mankoff’s cartoon 7 or above, which delighted him. Yet some respondents gave it a 1.

“Mankoff threw up his hands, calling this item ‘the most highly rated cartoon for funniness that I ever did, or (sob) will probably ever do.’”

Yudkin explains that people in your target market have many differences, and they won’t think the same thing when looking at an item or marketing message. “It’s foolhardy to aim at universal praise or acceptance,” she says.

Do a self-review

Before jumping off a cliff and rattling cages, take an honest look at the situation and yourself. The boss may know more than you realize but only forwards what you need to know. “Just because you think he asks for irrelevant tasks, it could be that he has a higher need for information than you do. In other words, you may operate from a style that allows you to make decisions with just some basic information. On the other hand, your boss may be a bit more cautious and detailed-oriented,” says Timothy A. Wilson.

Another way to do a self-check is to talk with trusted colleagues. Get insight into the work and boss. They might be able to fill in the gaps for you. “And always keep in mind — it’s a two-way street. He might have just as many things that he wants YOU to change as you have for him,” says Anja Schuetz, people management coach.

Entrepreneur Mike Fleck paraphrases Peter Drucker on the chain of command. “The most logical person or the person with the best argument does not make the decision; the person who has the POWER makes it. Learn to live with that, and life goes a lot easier. Finding a way to make your boss look good may mean digging deeper to understand better how to do that.”

Take a positive approach

Rather than having the difficult conversation with the boss, experiment with feeding the boss’s ego, giving him credit and tossing sincere compliments. “The best way to deal with this kind of boss is to make your ideas seem as if they came from the boss. It sounds unfair, but it works,” says Kathi Elster, K Squared Enterprises. Do the work, give him credit, and he might stop assigning useless tasks.

Try to change your mindset into a positive one by making an effort to compliment the boss. “I’m not talking about schmoozing; although, there is evidence from a University of Michigan study that schmoozers are more likely to get raises over non-schmoozers. When your boss does something well, pay him a sincere compliment. Positive feedback will reinforce the behavior and improve your relationship with your boss,” says Susan Fletcher, PhD, psychologist and author.

Meet with the boss

A few people recommend that Judy meet with the executive director to discuss the issue with diplomacy. “Speak up and improve your situation because festering in silence will only make your work environment less tolerable and less productive for you and your colleagues,” says Traci O’Dea, writer with aLookingGlass.

Think of the meeting as a problem-solving session and bring solutions with you. Kim Fabian, founder of TellUrBoss, offers tips on being diplomatic. “Discuss the specific tasks with your executive director first to ensure that he is aware of the problems in an issue-specific way. Do not attack him as a person, which is a recipe for defensiveness and backlash. Because these conversations are so difficult, it’s important to prepare some remarks and examples in advance and not just go in on the fly,” says Fabian.

Prepare for the meeting by capturing why the assignments are not relevant. Review the outcomes of these tasks, especially if they didn’t produce anything of value. Be prepared to discuss these assignments, priorities and outcomes with the boss.

Also, come with solutions and recommendations for his requests. “Armed with facts, present the team’s case as a business concern: deadlines missed, cost of overtime, missed revenue from projects on the back-burner, increases in sick days or employee turn-over,” says Julia Zunich, owner, Z Group PR.

Should meeting with the boss not work out, the team should meet with him to discuss concerns. If this also fails to solve the problem, it’s time to go to upper management.

Sandra Naiman, SMN Partners, suggests limiting questioning when discussing the assignments with the manager. Instead, save the questions for the more cumbersome tasks.

Go to the “grand boss”

Several readers outright oppose going to the CEO because going over someone’s head leads to more trouble. Others say it should be a last resort. Also, consider your corporate culture. “If the CEO has an ‘open-door’ policy, it makes sense to meet with him/her — but don’t go alone. At least two people from your department should go,” says Ann Middleman. “If you don’t have anything in writing, start saving his emails or memos. Build a case, and then go to the CEO.”

Use the same approach as meeting with the boss. Focus on the issue, show why the assignments are irrelevant to the business goals and objectives, use examples and avoid confrontation and insults.

As an alternative to going to the CEO, Ravi Kathuria of Cohegic proposes something that won’t be a quick solution but could help over the long-term. “Build relationships with the other team members of the executive team on a general basis. Then slowly, but surely, share what your team does and how some of the things the manager asks the team to do are not congruent with the most effective use of the team,” Kathuria says.

Accept the situation

Jay Valentine saw first-hand how a board can stick by a lousy boss regardless of the situation. “In my case, our CEO sent sexually loaded messages to our female marketing director and then invited my daughter who was just out of college to spend a weekend with him. He is a 50-year-old married guy. I reported it to the board, and it did nothing. I even produced the emails. So you need to know, the boss can be a total scumbag, and the management or board will stick with that person,” Valentine says.

Despite his effort, Matt Scherer couldn’t improve the situation until the loudmouth left. “They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease. In this scenario, the squeaky wheel will get the ‘boot!’ You can’t change other people. And upper management may not want to see what’s going on because they would have to put energy into changing things,” says Robin Siebold. Some readers say not to live with it in silence, while others believe the price to pay for trying to push for a solution could be too high; leaving things alone is wiser.

You can either stick it out or look elsewhere for a job where your manager values you. However, Heather Stagl of Enclaria, points out the downside of quitting. “It is said that people join companies but leave bosses. But what if you really enjoy your work and your coworkers, and don’t want to leave the company? Besides, what happens next time you find yourself in the same situation?” she says.

About the editor

Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans.

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Social Media: Transforming Company Culture

April 13th, 2010

The oldest B2B software company embraces the newest media

by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest

Transforming Company Culture

Effective business-to-business (B2B) social media is not just the latest “pretty face” in public relations (PR). It’s also transformational technology with the potential to help company departments work better together — operating in a united yet decentralized environment. Social media provides each area of the company with the power to interact with the outside world.

For Cincom Systems, Inc., one of the original B2B software companies, its social media revolution began in 2003 with the email newsletter, Expert Access. This newsletter is a result of the company’s plan to build a community of customers and prospects by giving them access to a variety of experts. Readers have the opportunity to ask experts questions. People sharing ideas give the company a strong way to extend its brand.

The email newsletter has helped the company build a solid following. “When social media vehicles began to appear, it made sense for us to make our conversation with our customers and prospects easier, faster and more broadly available to both Cincomers and our audience,” says Jay McKeever, Cincom director of worldwide marketing.

Cincom’s social media strategy

Cincom chooses to use social media as a way to help a new audience become aware of the company, which aims to provide answers that help the audience members do their jobs better. These answers can be in how-to’s, best practices, new trends and techniques in management, and technology articles. “From a global perspective, social media extends our reach to people and places in which we do not have physical representation,” says McKeever.

The company is working on a full-blown strategy for social media. “Different product teams are employing resources to promote events and news through social media outlets,” McKeever says. The company builds editorial calendars to guide its efforts. “But we need to assign more regular reporters to disseminate information and engage our audiences in two-way dialogue.”

The company uses social media as an interactive PR tool to engage its audience and tell its story without the hype. Instead, Cincom focuses on solving problems. “We work to earn their attention with good, solid, authentic stories/news without a whole lot of corporate crapola (AKA vomitus eruptus),” says Steve Kayser, Cincom PR manager and communicator. The company began its social media activities with no plan and by experimenting.

Recruiting activities

Steve Storer, Cincom senior recruiter, relies on social media to find the best talent as fast as possible for every open position. Storer explains that the most qualified applicants come from either direct employee referrals or friends and associates. “Social media applicants are a direct extrapolation of the traditional applicant referral process. Their knowledge and interests are searchable, and we can validate their fit for our job openings via analyzing their postings and testimonials from others,” says Storer.

Recruiters can discover potential candidates through their LinkedIn group activities or Twitter stream. On the flip side, candidates can check out Cincom to see if the company is a fit with their career objectives and goals.

“Based on firsthand experience, direct referral candidates and social media applicants are much more closely aligned to the requirements of our job postings. That allows me to focus my recruiting efforts on screening-in a greater number of quality applicants for each open position,” Storer says.

Social media removes the tedious part of the recruiter equation of relying on a traditional weeding-out process based on analyzing large volumes of unqualified applicants who may have a well-designed résumé filled with appropriate key words. Such candidates may turn out to have little applicable experience relative to job openings.

Building a business case for social media

Like many companies, Cincom faced skeptics and had to begin with education and adoption. Not everyone likes to write, and employees are busy in times when many businesses do more with less. Social media has become one more thing that people don’t have time to do. Cincom has overcome some obstacles but not all. The company wants to see every employee contribute in some way to its social media efforts.

Cincom has shown the value and power of social media to employees. “It can be fun and addicting, but the company needs to get better at the fun part,” McKeever says. Cincom is assigning posting shifts and using an editorial calendar to help employees avoid the “I don’t know what to write about” syndrome. “We are trying to streamline this process by breaking up our efforts between thought leadership, survey questions, news flashes and other content,” McKeever says.

Cincom built a case for social media through its early adopters, especially Louis Columbus, Steve Kayser and James Robertson, all whom are active in social media. They’ve been the influencers to employees in showing the value of social media. “They set the example, they demonstrated the effect it could have on awareness and community development, and people are slowly getting on board. It doesn’t hurt that this is a relatively low-cost platform — one we can track,” says McKeever.

The company saw its business case for social media come together quickly because the low-cost platform offers an easy way to listen to prospects and
customers. The company realized that not listening to customer complaints is an expensive mistake.

Measuring success

Cincom measures traffic from social medial to its Web sites, or watches data related to an offer. “After several months of looking initially at the Google Analytics reports and later, WordPress, we all became convinced that as a means to drive upper-funnel activity, it was a clear winner. Since then, we’ve seen our upper-funnel statistics at levels we’ve never attained previously through traditional strategies,” Columbus says.

The company tracks page views, Web crawlers accessing the content and RSS feed subscriptions for every item shared in social media. It also looks at time visitors spend on the content including blogs and landing pages and opt-ins for downloads. “Against all these metrics, we measure our own progress over time. When we made the shift from Google Analytics to WordPress, the feedback became much more focused and helped us to do much more,” says Columbus.

The company reviews search terms and uses the more popular terms that drive the most traffic. After identifying key terms, the company creates fresh content using those terms.

Advice to businesses

“Strap on your Nikes and just do it! Really, it’s like anything else you do to communicate and market. Who is my audience? What is meaningful to them? How can I help them solve their problems? Why should they listen to me? Understand those things, develop a strategy, set a plan, execute, monitor feedback and make changes,” says McKeever. He recommends the following:

Listen first. Follow or connect with people you respect in the different social networks to get a feel for how to best use each one.
Deliver value regularly. The content you share doesn’t need to be about your company. “Strive to deliver insights and intelligence your followers and connections can use to be better at what they do. When you have news about your products or services, share it once or twice. But break up those messages and conversations with a ton of valuable content,” Columbus says.
Be real and be honest. Respect everyone you interact with in social media.
Apply the 1-10-1 rule. “You have 1 second to attract someone’s attention (title/subject line) so you can earn 10 seconds of his or her time to earn 1 minute to pay attention to your story — whatever that may be,” Kayser says.

“Far and away, the most critical factor in making social media part of our overall marketing approach is the innate value of these networks as a learning ecosystem,” says McKeever. “Having the ability to listen, learn and put together entirely new solutions based on what prospects and customers say is invaluable.”

Cincom at a glance

Goal: Using social media, Cincom targets the media, analysts, IT managers, business users and technology evaluators. It uses social media to generate favorable awareness about the company, build a deep relationship with people by solving their problems and share its expertise by assisting people in the Cincom products and services buying process.

Social media tools: Some of Cincom’s social media activities occur as the result of its editorial calendar. The company uses a mix of tools to participate in conversations and share experiences. Here are some tools it uses:

Twitter: Cincom employees post tweets to respond tocomments, share subject matter expertise and announce news.
LinkedIn: Sales teams around the world use LinkedIn as a branding and sales tool. Cincom finds potential candidates and looks at their postings to see if they’re a possible fit. The company is rolling out training to facilitate this effort.
Blogs: The company leaves comments on blogs other than its own. It also has a few of its own blogs including one from the CEO to share thought leadership.

4. Analytical tools: Cincom began with Google Analytics, but it needed more real-time information and details, so its development team created analytics for WordPress. It also uses whos.amung.us and Feedjit.

The company has expanded its tools to include YouTube, a Facebook page and social media news releases.

Results: The company has increased traffic, increased interest and achieved better SEO placement for findability. Of course, nothing matters unless sales reflect increased activity. “Our Healthcare group attributes its last two major deals to prospects searching for a topic and finding a social media news release and an Expert Access article on a certain topic,” Kayser says.

Blogs and Twitter posts have helped Cincom learn more about how outsiders perceive the company than ever before. Industry experts, prospects and existing customers provide the company with a lot of feedback simply because Cincom freely shares insights. Social media gives an instant snapshot that tells the company whether it’s on track using statistics from Web site and blog traffic and the impact of its brand-building activities.

McKeever says, “When conversations start with these people either in person or on the phone, there is this immediacy to them — They feel they already know you. That immediacy and trust from sharing information and intelligence continues to keep us plugged into the latest developments in the market, and that is invaluable.”

8 Comments "

Previous Dilemma:
Scaring off sales

April 10th, 2010

Scaring Off Sales

My company hired me as its first marketing executive. I have a designer and a copywriter who have been here for years. We work together well.

My sales counterpart and I also got along GREAT at first, until I suggested interviewing the sales team to better understand how their customers might react to a social media initiative. Since then, she has found excuse after excuse for me not to speak with them, and our relationship is a bit strained. Is there a way to fix this relationship, or should I try another approach to reach sales?

— Flailing in sales

Summary of Advice Received

The Truth about Social Media

It opens doors and closes deals

by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest

Social media, aside from blogs, is still new for many people, especially those in business-to-business (B2B) companies. Some people firmly believe that social media isn’t a sales function. True or not, it should not stop a company from investigating social media as an option to build broader and deeper relationships. Because social media can open doors and close deals, most readers think that even if sales staff don’t lead your social media efforts, convincing them of its merits is essential.

Readers recommend that you:

Discuss people’s concerns.
Reassure sales that objectives will remain intact.
Use success-story examples.
Show how this builds client/customer relationships.

Discuss people’s concerns

Like any management challenge, when a colleague or manager puts up a wall, you tear down the wall slowly by opening conversation. Ask questions. Find out her concerns. Maybe together you can find solutions and answers to those concerns.

One reader suggests going to lunch and directly asking why she’s opposed to the approach. Use this as an opportunity to dig deep into her issues. “Explaining your reasoning may help alleviate her concerns,” says the reader.

Reassure sales that objectives will remain intact

When something new comes along, some people struggle with change. Connecting something new with your business objectives is a way to open the door. Since employees should already be familiar and comfortable with objectives, making the link between the old and the familiar can provide reassurance.

Clive Burton says that with many sales jobs going away, people in sales may fear for their jobs and shut down when hearing about social media initiatives “unless you can convince them that such initiatives will, in fact, contribute to the reps’ success.”

Use success-story examples

Stories and examples of B2B companies succeeding with social media pop up regularly. It takes little searching to find examples of companies comparable to yours. Better yet, use competitors as examples. Also look for clients using social media. This shows they find social media valuable enough to use it; then your sales team can, too.

“My most successful point was that old saying — people do business with people, not companies. These days, it goes one step further. People do business with people THEY KNOW. The best way for your sales reps to get to know their potential customers is through social media,” says Nancy Hamel.

Show how this builds client/customer relationships

Not all businesses look at the numbers or return on investment when it comes to the effectiveness of social media. Using social media connects company employees with clients and prospects. It’s a return on relationships.

“While involving newer ‘social media’ techniques, the issue seems to be the same old challenge of keeping sales and marketing in lock step. What I have found is that it helps to illustrate the potential value to the sale force as a way for it to extend conversations, credibility and number of unique touches into accounts,” Joel Capperella says.

Sales focuses heavily on building relationships, and social media does a good job of facilitating that.

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B2B Social Media Is a Long Winding Road …

March 30th, 2010

Dell says it’s worth the trip
by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest

Long Winding Road

Article after article says social media works even for business-to-business(B2B) companies. But example after example claims to represent B2B, and is actually for business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing.

Because Dell is a technology company, it walks the talk by always using technology and the Web to support its business. Dell has generated almost $7 million in sales from Twitter alone. Convinced?

Dell’s social media strategy

Dell believes that social media can be a very effective, indeed critical component for using the Web to business advantage and for connecting with customers. To drive this point home, think about eating at a restaurant. Granted, this is a B2C example, but stick with this. A person with an allergy requests an entree without an ingredient. Another diner asks to substitute fruit for the potatoes. Yet another diner requests a drink that was not on the menu, and as a result, the waiter runs to another store just to get a drink the customer requested.

The smart restaurant learns from feedback. It adds the missing drink to its menu. It lists substitutions to provide choices so the customer will be more comfortable requesting a change. The restaurant would’ve never thought to change its strategy without customer input. If it had controlled its strategy, it may not have adapted to customer requests. This adaptation shows the company cares about providing customer service. Social media is the electronic form for the feedback process.

The company uses social media for more than just marketing. Dell integrates social media with many areas of the business to connect with customers and to nourish relationships.

When Dell entered social media four years ago, its employees realized the impact it could have at the time. “Back then, it was all about connecting and responding to customers and just making social media work,” says Chief Blogger Lionel Menchaca.

Richard Binhammer of Dell’s social media team reports that Dell’s key business customers say that social media is the most trustworthy online source for information. He quotes an IT Toolbox Study from May 2007, “When making purchasing decisions, IT professionals and executive decision-makers spend nearly 3.5 hours per week consuming or participating in social media — the highest usage profile of any IT audience.”

Metrics measure success

Dell learns from its customers and reviews the business objectives and measures based on those objectives. A major factor in the way the company defines success is in terms of helping customers resolve issues, identifying new product drivers, connecting with fans, sharing information about technology and implementing product suggestions from Ideastorm.

On Twitter for example, Dellservergeek and Delltechcenter measure very different things than the folks involved with Ideastorm or Dell Home offer. However both are fundamentally rooted in Dell’s value of connecting with customers in a direct way.

Advice to businesses

“What customers have to say is vitally important to your business,” says Binhammer. If it’s overwhelming, start by listening before deciding where and how to engage, then take the plunge.

Listen to customers. Remember to listen to the blogosphere, not just the Twitters and LinkedIns of the world. Be ready to respond even if you don’t have the answers right away.
Make it easy for customers to contact you. The more accessible a business is for its customers, the stronger the relationship.
Thank customers for business. You don’t always have to find something to talk about. Just acknowledging them can make a difference.
Ask customers for suggestions. Dell uses Ideastorm to encourage customers to share ideas and suggestions for its products and services. Don’t assume customers will come to you. Ask.
Go where customers meet. Go wherever you can find your customers. Even if they haven’t found their way to a channel yet — such as Facebook — it doesn’t hurt to start something in case they do come later. Participate in these conversations.

“The key is to be yourself and avoid spamming,” says Binhammer. “Making genuine, direct connections with your customers in meaningful ways can only help you deliver what customers want at the end of the day.”

Dell at a glance

Goal: Dell has different business units that focus on reaching their target market and interacting online with customers and prospects.

“We are reaching out to listen, learn and engage with customers because ultimately we want our customers to feel like they are walking the halls of Dell every day, and we want to continually improve and do better as a business for them,” says Binhammer.

Social media tools: Dell relies on many different tools, depending on the business unit. It uses a multi-pronged strategy for joining and participating in conversations. You’ll find Dell using the following tools:

1. Twitter: Dell has many different Twitter accounts to ensure it targets various customers and business types. The company has an entire page devoted to its Twitter activities at http://www.dell.com/twitter and explains the purpose of each account. @delloutlet has generated $3 million worth of sales from Twitter.

2. Community forums: IdeaStorm gives customers an interactive forum for sharing their ideas for Dell products and services and seeing the ideas in action. The forum has over 10,000 ideas with almost 400 implemented. It encourages people to join conversations at www.dell.com/conversations.

3. Blogs: Dell Blog Network covers Direct2Dell, Dell Channel, Dell Shares, Inside Enterprise IT, Education and Tech Center. It even has blogs available in different languages.

4. Others: Dell has a presence in almost every major social media network ranging from Facebook and YouTube to Flickr and Slideshare.

Results

Dell has over 3.5 million people in its social media community including Twitter, Direct2Dell, IdeaStorm and others. It attributes almost $7 million of sales to Twitter alone. Direct2Dell is available in five languages and has 200,000 page views per month.

“If you want to be successful in your use of social media, ask for suggestions, listen to customers in the blogosphere and wherever they congregate, and participate in conversations,” Chief Blogger Lionel Menchaca recommends.

Binhammer says, “At any given moment, we can reach out to our customers to ask questions and get instant feedback. Being a part of those conversations has value, and it has been recognized since the days of chat rooms and community forums.” After all, these conversations will happen with or without you.

6 Comments "

Sales and Marketing OR Sales vs. Marketing?

March 5th, 2010

Key: Differentiate sales and marketing efforts

by John Stein - Stein’s Way

Sales and Marketing

Are you combining your sales and marketing efforts? This is not the approach to take. Each has its own function. Stein shares his definitions.

[Read more...]

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10 B2B Social Media Videos Worth Watching

March 5th, 2010

The power of social media for B2B companies

by Kipp Bodnar – Social Media B2B

The power of social media

For some people, video is a better way to learn about something new to them. Videos can offer more depth than an article and express emotion. Those in B2B who want to better understand how to use social media from a B2B perspective can get all they need in these 10 diverse videos.

[ Watch videos ... ]

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Scaring off sales

March 1st, 2010

Scaring off Sales

My company hired me as its first marketing executive. I have a designer and a copywriter that have been there for years. We work together well.

– Flailing in sales

4 Comments "

Social media for salespeople? Where do we start?

March 1st, 2010

Where do we start?

I’m pushing my sales team to add social media to its repertoire. We started with Twitter and tried to train the sales staff; however, they aren’t taking it seriously. They continue to use the hard-sell approach.

I don’t think they understand how to use Twitter and LinkedIn to build relationships.

Should we expect the sales team to use these tools, or should marketing maintain them and pass on leads to sales?

– Overwhelmed in Chicago

Summary of Advice Received

Social Media: B2B’s Perfect Lead Generator

Joint journey taken by both sales and marketing

by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest

Business.com has released a report, the 2009 B2B Social Media Benchmark Study that looks at a diversity of business-to-business (B2B) companies and their social media use. The most interesting fact is that B2B marketing and communications employees use social media the most, followed by senior management and sales. Multiple metrics in the study show that using social media is new for those who use it for business, with most getting into it within the past one to two years.

Another tidbit is that marketing drives social media initiatives in 76 percent of the responding B2B companies. The report shows that social media has value to B2B.

What does this mean for “Overwhelmed in Chicago?” Well, the answers to this dilemma go beyond deciding who should do what with social media. We had an overwhelming response to this question, and readers provide sound advice to make social media as effective as it can be. Work through the following activities with multiple departments getting involved to successfully incorporate social media into your business.

Look at goals before social media.
Go where your customers go.
Train staff.
Focus beyond sales.
Split tasks between sales and marketing.
Put the responsibility on marketing.
Involve other employees.

Look at goals before social media

“I think the key to executing successful and measurable campaigns is to make this area of the business (sales team) understand what the goals are for the business as well as the role they play in achieving these goals with social media,” says Sven N. Reigle, associate of online marketing with World Wildlife Fund.

Tim Nixon, partner, Identity Marketing and Public Relations, also recommends clarifying your goals. “They are asking, ‘How can Twitter help our sales force,’ when they should ask, ‘What are our goals, who is our audience, where are they online, what do they need, what do WE want to change in terms of our relationship with them?’ THEN you can apply tactics and technology against that intelligence.”

AJ Gerritson, founding partner of 451 Marketing, “thirds” that recommendation. He asks, “Is your goal to generate leads? Connect with existing customers? Retain employees? All social media activities need to be well thought out in the form of a strategy directly tied to business objectives. A strategy will help you determine who should use social media tools to send your messages.”

Go where your customers go

Once you determine your goals, remember to know your audience. “One type of social media does not fit all situations,” says James W. Obermayer, executive director of the Sales Lead Management Association.

Sharon Mostyn reminds us to keep the pulse on what customers are doing. “Determine where your customers are, then go to them; don’t expect them to come to you. Listen first, then engage.”

“If you want to build relationships with your clients and sales team with Twitter and LinkedIn,” adds Global Brands, Inc. CEO Jerry A. Grunor, “why not identify some of your current clients who are already there? Use them as part of a training team for your sales staff.”

Train staff

If you want to engage customers and get across a specific message, Tarla Cummings, social media manager, Location3 Media, says, “You can’t force anyone to use Twitter or other social media networks.”

She says that instead, you should train your sales staff on how to use it properly and clearly explain the benefits for them personally. “It may take some cheerleading at first on your part, but once they make a real connection and get their first sale through Twitter or LinkedIn, they’ll be social media junkies for life!”

Mike Santoro, president of Walker Sands Communications, says that the staff won’t get any value by just signing up. “Show how they can use LinkedIn to connect with partners, find new leads and research prospects before initial meetings. Demonstrate how they can use Twitter to nurture relationships and help establish people as thought leaders within the industry. Clear actions will help them actually do the most valuable tasks. Tell them to join a specific group or respond to a specific question. Clear actions will make sure they actually get done. Too often marketing teams make the mistake of saying, ‘You should use Twitter,’ without giving any clear direction to how or why.”

Education goes a long way. “Rather than push the sales team,” says Linda Gordon, national sales director, Think Big Sites, “lead them. Use social media yourself and obtain leads from those sources. When they clearly see the benefit – they will change. If they do not — their sales will suffer.”

Focus beyond sales

If sales is one of your top goals, know that you will never reach that goal unless you build a relationship with customers and prospects. Elinor Stutz, CEO with Smooth Sale, LLC, says, “The era of hard-push sales is over (I used to sell an unknown brand of copier door-to-door), and trust me, I saw many antics from male salesmen. My style is to build relationships and attract clients. The key on Twitter is to offer samplings of expert advice first without links — NO selling!”

Arthur Zards, CMO, XNet, calls social media a “relationship tool.” He says, “Only expect the sales team to use social media tools as long as they are using similar non-social media tools, such as cold calling. These relationship tools are just like a phone,” he says.

We can take this concept one step farther. “I tell clients to think of Twitter and other forms of social media as a cocktail party. You don’t use a hard sell approach at a cocktail party. You talk and get to know the people while allowing them to get to know you! You give back by LISTENING!” says Angela Daffron of Daffron Marketing.

Kent Lewis, president of Anvil Media, Inc. points out that the sales team can do more than just build relationships with Twitter. He recommends that you:

Find prospects using keyword research for relevant questions and comments.

Monitor conversations and tracking trends.

Identify influencers and engage them.

Share valuable insights and information.

Provide customer support.

Claire Celsi, owner of the Public Relations Princess, LLC, points out that you cannot force this process. “People must be patient and not pushy about making friends. As for harvesting leads and passing them on, I think that’s putting the cart before the horse. You should worry more about how the customers will perceive getting shuffled off to someone they don’t know.”

Split tasks between sales and marketing

Some people think that companies should split the responsibility for social media between sales and marketing, depending on your goals. “The key is to understand the motivations behind sales vs. marketing,” says Sam Liu, vice president of marketing, Partnerpedia. “If for general communications to customers, then marketing will need to take ownership of the content and process. If it’s something more directly tied to driving sales, then sales would have the motivation to take on the effort.

“In general, you’ll not find many sales folks who want to spend time in social media for business reasons. The ones who do (for business) are likely to focus their effort on developing a network of opportunities or contacts for sales potential.”

Others believe that this works better as a team effort. “Both sales and marketing staff should definitely use Twitter and LinkedIn. Sales reps can use Twitter and LinkedIn to share knowledge about the product or service they are selling,” says Sajeel Qureshi, vice president of operations for Computan.

Steven Tylock, The LinkedIn Personal Trainer, adds, “Let’s make it easy on your sales team — instead of using LinkedIn as a marketing tool, every single one of them should use LinkedIn to identify prospects, research those prospects (and any others that come into the pipeline from another source) and find warm introductions from their existing contacts.”

Another way to think of social media is as a customer relationships management (CRM) tool. “LinkedIn is a mini CRM system and a way to stay up to date with people that like to share what they’re doing, what’s important to them and to answer questions or raise discussions,” says Carol Hagen.

Consider thinking big. “If your sales and marketing team do an effective job of using social media, you can expect to reduce your overall marketing budget by approximately 40 percent of your current spend. If your company can make this transition, there should be no reason why the sales team cannot receive a slightly higher commission/bonus for using these tools to save the company money. So you may also want to change your incentive plan, based on the channels the staff uses to generate and close sales,” says Tim Pacileo, The BoardRoomAdvisors, LLC.

When sales and marketing are working together toward the same goals, they can learn the best “social media techniques” from each other. “Each platform has its own unique set of traits that a savvy salesperson can leverage,” says Jon Mandell, social media strategist, MarketingSmartt. “For example, Linkedin allows you to search by job title or function, which can be extremely helpful for identifying decision-makers and potential leads. On Twitter, the ‘Lists’ feature can help you find individuals grouped by industry. Each platform also has a slightly different etiquette. Have your sales team spend some time exploring each platform to get a sense of how people interact, and train them properly on the less obvious functions so that they know what goes on behind the scenes.” Ditto for the marketing staff.

Another option is to define marketing and sales roles and processes where social media is concerned. “With social media tools like TweetDeck and HootSuite, businesses can set up an internal workflow to deal with social media. This means marketing can run the main account and route requests to the sales team or customer service,” Robert Gourley, creative director at Mojave.

Mike Schlossberg, assistant vice president, technical and community management at Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, says, “My feeling is that Twitter, LinkedIn and other Social Media aren’t just for sales or just for marketing; instead, you need to integrate the two strategies, and that is what makes social media so unique (and so challenging to many sales and marketing professionals). Social media must be used for a variety of objectives to truly be successful — sales, marketing, customer feedback, relationship building, market research, etc.”

Put the responsibility on marketing

A few people think that marketing should lead the effort. “Relationship building is certainly more in line with the job description of the marketing team, so let them manage the account, but plan for them to bring up the Twitter strategy regularly with the sales team so you can be sure to incorporate product news or specials in your company’s tweets,” says Natalie Nicole Gilbert, On Time Talent Productions.

Mandy Minor, principal and marketing strategist, J Allan Studios, says this: “Twitter is 100 percent marketing’s domain, and if you have sales manage it, you’ll likely do way more harm than good. Relationship building is the only way to make sales now, and Twitter is all about building relationships. I also caution that you need to get your sales team into training to find other ways than the hard sell; people don’t like it, it’s last century, and you cannot bully people into becoming your customers.”

Involve other employees

The problem could be that people are telling the sales team to use social media without any explanation. “Since much of social media does not involve ‘hard sales,’ it becomes very tough for a sales team to switch gears. Further, social media requires a significant investment of time, making this an activity that should probably be outside of the core sales team. Having said that, train each salesperson with social media basics to identify opportunities,” says Jesse Torres, president and CEO of Pan American Bank.

Brad Squires, creative director with Bold Type Design, recommends spreading the responsibility among departments. “A good approach is to allow members of various departments to tweet, so long as they are tweeting worthwhile posts that communicate the company’s personality and values. For example, in a software company, a programmer could tweet about an IT issue the company just resolved, while a designer could mention a hot new design.”

Maryanne Conlin, founder of the MCMilker Group, suggests assigning the job to some employees. “I recommend developing a social media position. Back in the day, we had marketing departments and sales departments. Now companies often have a ‘trade marketing’ group that straddles the two. Social media, as a function also straddles several departments, which is why, to do it right, dedicating (at least part-time) staff is the best approach.”

If you don’t have a champion for your social media efforts, they may slowly fizzle out. “For the company I would find an advocate — could be in sales, marketing or even somewhere else who is using social media and loving it,” says Jacqueline Wolven, owner, Moxie Marketing. “Let them be the ‘voice’ of your company for a while (of course observed by you) and then talk about that experience at a sales meeting. You never know, you might have a social media advocate right within your flock who can lead your troops to this new relationship marketing tool. If all else fails, bring in a consultant to work with your sales people to help them understand the value.”

Part of educating staff about social media is involving them in the process. “Social media input should be a company-wide program. Everyone needs to be ‘on the same page’ about the product and what they can and can’t post. It’s about engagement. The more voices that actually talk beyond the product but engage Twitter and Facebook people will make a bigger impression about the depth of the social media program and how seriously the company takes it. It’s not a departmental issue — it’s a company issue,” says Stevie Wilson, CMO, KBP Inc.

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Social Media for B2B Companies

March 1st, 2010

Kiboshing three myths
by Rebecca Kelley, 10e20

Social Media

Plenty of reports including those from Pew Internet show a massive increase in adult use of social networking sites. So why would small businesses not use social media? Some worry about security, some say they don’t have time, some don’t think they need it to succeed. But is it worth ignoring social media when businesses rely on social media sites for business information?

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Story Telling, B2B for Twitter, LinkedIN, Facebook and CEOs

January 22nd, 2010

Here are some great B2B finds for the week for weekend reading.

* Storytelling for Sales Professionals: Cool little formula for storytelling, useful for more than salespeople.
* 62 Ways to Use Twitter in Business: This should convince any doubter that Twitter has value for business.
* 33 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business: You can do more than just connect and receive recommendations.
* So you don’t think Twitter is for B2B? IBM,Pitney Bowes & others prove otherwise.
* How Should B2B Marketers Use Facebook Fan Pages? Business employees have Facebook IDs. So use the opportunity to talk to them.
* How to Sell Social Media to B2B Companies: Research, strategize and plan like you do for anything else in your business.
* Study: Inc. 500 CEOs Aggressively Use Social Media for Business: Fast-growing companies are visible in social media.
* In Social Media, It’s Not Just Business, It’s Business-To-Business: http://www.briansolis.com/2009/12/in-social-media-it%E2%80%99s-not-just-business-its-business-to-business/ Use social media for thought leadership, leads and customer feedback.

What have you learned about social media for B2B this week?

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Get Lost on the B2B Social Media Path?

January 22nd, 2010

Texas Instruments Paves Way; Learn from Their Approach

No matter your feelings about social media (SM), it’s big and proving it’s not a fad. Many B2B companies want to learn how to engage their clients and prospects. However, many businesses — including large organizations — can’t find their way, feeling wary about proceeding or taking shots in the dark.

Today, Texas Instruments (TI) continues its innovative ways by using SM in an organized manner with a bite-sized, zeroed-in strategy.

TI’s marketing approach

“Marketing, from our point of view, has always been about connecting to individuals and influencing them, even before the rise of social media,” says TI’s Director of Internet Marketing Devashish Saxena. “So we were lucky to have a wealth of understanding about design engineers and the decision process they use when they design products.”

The company knew what kind of information engineers were looking for, and had a good understanding of how they get that information and make decisions using the online channel in general.

As TI started going down the SM path, it first went back to that deep understanding to figure out how the engineers’ behavior would evolve or shift. More importantly, to identify how TI could take advantage of these new technologies, and help the engineers do what they are trying to do, in a way that helps TI from a business perspective. “We decided to zero in on the support area,” Saxena says.

Market research found that design engineers primarily use the Web to connect with manufacturers like TI to gather product information and technical specifications. However, after completing testing and prototyping phases, they rely on their colleagues as the number one source of support, often using informal personal connections.

Building a community

“We saw that as an opportunity and created the E2E Community as a place where engineers can connect with other engineers to engage in support dialogue,” says Saxena. Even more critical is that it’s a place where they can connect with TI engineers. TI’s customers value nothing more than access to its engineers.

“We’re not the first to develop an engineering-oriented forum, of course. But ours is the only one with direct access to TI design engineers, which is something that sets us apart,” says Saxena.

In addition to forum postings and conversation threads, the E2E Community also incorporates a lot of video content. Originally, the company printed how-to application notes, ranging from one or two pages to 50. Then it started looking closer at creating videos rather than documents. Now it puts an engineer in a lab or in front of a whiteboard and posts it on E2E.

Metrics measure success

TI defined and tracked traditional online metrics, such as traffic to the site and click-throughs, but the main metrics it used were the same ones it looks at across the online channel, and that is engagement.

“We track not only engagement of people in the community, but more importantly, whether engagement in the community drives the conversion from suspect to prospect to customer,” Saxena says. All marketing efforts had traditionally looked at certain behaviors as drivers: If they come to the site, download a product sheet, look at a video, request a sample, etc., they are progressing down the funnel in terms of engagement.

Similarly, TI tracks engagement levels in the E2E Community. Are they logging on frequently, participating in discussions or consuming content?

Go for a quick win

Saxena advises building something small, capturing the data and using an early success as a springboard. “You have to have a ‘success story’ or two before you can get the buy-in you need to go further,” he says.

When TI first traveled down the E2E Community path, instead of launching across all products, Saxena identified one or two specific areas, specifically the digital signal processing team and the low-power radio frequency team. “In both cases, we had ‘champions’ who felt good enough about the idea to want to jump in and participate in pilot programs,” says Saxena.

Advice to other marketers

“Social media is huge,” says Saxena. “If you don’t clearly define what you want to accomplish and whom you want to reach and what behavior you are trying to drive, it’s easy to get lost. And you can do a lot of shooting in the dark.” He sums it up:

Define your goals. Know what you want to do, whom you are trying to connect with and what behavior you want to influence.
Pick one thing. TI zoned in on support as a problem it wanted to solve for its engineer prospects. Don’t get distracted, or think that you need to use Facebook because everyone else is using it.
Be ready for passionate internal debate. Prepare for that and be smart about finding one or two areas where you can build some small pilots and show success before broadening out. It’s difficult to get unanimous agreement in these spaces, unless you’re a very small organization.
Develop comparative metrics so you can demonstrate success. Of course that will vary by industry and target market. “In our case, it was engineer engagement, which we had already been tracking for five or six years,” he says.

Even a large company has to enter the social media realm in bite-sizes. Big or small, TI shows that a company would have a better chance of buy-in and success if it begins with a single focus and tracking the before and after. TI shows no sign of aging as it continues unveiling new products.

Texas Instruments at a glance

Goal: TI’s target market in its B2B semiconductor business primarily consists of design engineers at companies like Cisco or Apple, who are developing products and making decisions about technical specifications and functionality that could include TI products. The goal with SM is to get more of them “engaged” with TI.

Engaged, as TI defines it, means progressing down the marketing funnel by visiting a site, logging in, downloading a product sheet, ordering a sample, buying a developer kit, etc. “We have models that show that if we can get engineers to request samples or buy our developer kits, we know what that means in terms of revenue down the road,” says Saxena.

Social media tools

TI relies on three main tools:

Online Forum: TI’s E2E Community connects engineers to engineers (both customer and TI engineers) for delivering design support. TI has identified forums, video and blogs as the three legs of the chair that makes up the community. All three develop high-value tips and design help content. This community leads TI’s SM effort.
Twitter: The TI Twitter feed, @TXInstruments, shares company activities and industry-related information with its followers, which include customers, electrical engineers, hardware and software developers, students, professors, employees, field sales, distributors, reporters and analysts. @TXInstruments also highlights relevant product developments, tradeshow activities, pertinent media coverage, industry news and trends.
Conversation Agents: These agents contribute to online discussions and have a part in the company’s comprehensive approach to SM. TI finds appropriate SM conversations on the Web and deploys select employees to act as Conversation Agents and contribute to those discussions.

Results: After a year, TI compared metrics from its engagement of the traditional online customer to those who took part in its new E2E Community. “We found that twice as many E2E members were engaged with TI, and their engagement was broader, deeper and more recent,” says Saxena. “We found two to six times more engagement across each of the metrics we measure, compared to the average person who interacts with us in the online channel.”

Saxena adds, “We are doing further research, but we think that those who became E2E members were predisposed to do business with us.”

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