Red On Marketing Blog

Learn the social media secret handshake at IMU

By Rebekah E. Donaldson

Vendors and job applicants pitch B2B Communications each week. So far in 2009, about 1 in 4 indicate familiarity with social media. About 1 in 100 have engaged with us first through social media.

How can busy professionals get a grasp on marketing 2.0 — and start to engage and contribute? I recommend Inbound Marketing University as a foundation. After that, social media mentoring or coaching might be in order.

In 2008, after about the 100th pitch from a vendor who had no clue what a blog is, much less that we have one, I started taking note of how many vendors and job applicants use social media to demonstrate genuine interest in the companies they are courting.

Here are the numbers from Q1 and Q2 2009:

• Vendor/job applicant use of social media to engage with prospect 1%
• Vendor/job applicant social media experience 25%
• Percent of vendors/job applicants we hired who used social media to engage 100%

What does it mean to demonstrate interest using social media?

For example — if you’re starting from scratch:

1. Click the button that says “Blog” on our home page.
2. Enter a cogent comment about something (anything!).
3. Look for me to reply. Reply thoughtfully to my reply. 

Together we build knowledge and community.

Empowering marketers to get a footing with social media

What tools or help would really empower people to follow this advice, though?

In an effort to think constructively about this issue (instead of going bananas that job applicants and vendors are seemingly ignoring the “secret handshake” of social media), I asked colleagues in a Hubspot Forum and one of my LinkedIn groups about whether it seems useful, ethical, and practical to set up a B2B Communications Social Media Mentor Program.

Learning the social media secret handshake

Among the responsees received (attribution shown, if I got permission):

“…maybe the key is to embed somewhere in your blogs the way you prefer to be contacted for employment. That way if they really are interested in your company because they have looked through your posts to understand what you are about, then they will know the secret handshake, so to speak…” — Jim Lapic, DIYshutters.com

“Not sure you’re doing yourself favors by helping people “put on the right makeup“. Social media/blogging is nearly 15 years old now. It’s been a major marketing force for at least the last 5 years, and maybe more. Anyone who wants to work in communications and doesn’t get that, or can’t figure it out, doesn’t understand the medium. Is that the sort of person you want to hire?….”

“….The ones who actually are smart enough to try to engage you are the ones you should be interested in. They get it. I think at that point, your idea of giving them some direction and structure is great. Just make it clear whether they might wind up with a job (a giant carrot) or a reference (a mini carrot) at the end of your process. As long as you’re clear, you’ll wind up with some young folks who look at you and your company in a very positive light. And you never know where that good karma might get you. ” Ann Blanchard, Blanchard Enterprises and Handirecords

“Wow! It sure sounds like it would be very helpful, the ethics seem clear to me in your description of the purpose and intent, I would wonder at the manageability….” Jerry Wilkinson, Green Frog Outdoor Furniture

“One suggestion, instead of a resume make it a contest to see who can be most creative with social media to submit their qualifications….” Geoff Sakala, Owner, Metro Media

“….Look at the Murphy-Goode campaign: http://www.areallygoodejob.com/video-thumbs.aspx… the campaign brought thousands of people to their site….” Bill Betz, Investor/ reverse engineer at Pavement Marking Technologies, Inc.

“….If you treat your intern with respect, trust, and include him/her in the decision making process, you will create a professional you’ll be proud to recommend or one day call a colleague. Plus their work will reflect that empowerment.” — Jenny Koreny, Online Learning & Multimedia Designer

A foundation for social media coaching and mentoring

I would be happy to engage with vendors and job applicants through social media… if everyone is on the same page about marketing best practices.

Just look at how useful it can be. The people named above (and others) helped me think through an issue – without payment or quid pro quo… without my traveling anywhere… on their own time. That made me want to help them back (see links above).

It’s all good because we’re all on the same page about the value of social media marketing and how to go about it.

Learn the ”secret handshake” at Inbound Marketing University

I recommend Inbound Marketing University for learning the social media “secret handshake.” 

The IMU program includes webinars by thoughtleaders in the social media, internet marketing and lead generation industries and culminates in an inbound marketing certification exam. 

Learn more about IMU >>

Social Media Coaching from B2B Communications

I offer a 90 minute social media coaching session focused on your social media marketing needs and questions.

Learn more about my social media coaching >>

Business ethics and the rise of business blogging

Yesterday I participated in the CSUS Symposium on Personal and Professional Integrity in Business. The event was excellent - it surpassed my expectations.

 

Superb business ethics forum at CSUS

 

Congratulations to Christina Bellon, Russell DiSilvestro, and the whole CSUS Philosophy Department on a job well done.

Rick Shubert introduced me, moderated, and paraphrased questions from the audience - the better to capture them on the video recording and clarify the essential point for speakers. I nominate Rick to moderate the presidential debates in 2012. Can I get a second?

 

Standouts in business ethics

I was thrilled to see colleagues, including Elisabeth Brinton, in the audience, when I offered my session, "The New Rules of Business Communications - Business Ethics and the Rise of Business Blogs." My only regret is that, because of a client committment, I missed the morning keynote by Ed Hartman of the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Business blogging questions posed by the audience

In no particular order, here are some of the questions posed by the audience yesterday:

1. What can be done [in the blogosphere?] to recognize and support the authenticity of the individual voice?
2. What can be done to protest against false accusations online?
3. Do you think that the anonymity of online forums creates a tendency on the part of participants to fight against rather than for a cause? Do you think it gives rise to conflict-oriented interactions?
4. Do those in marketing have a robust fiduciary obligation to their employers or are they merely a means to their employers ends (so long as those ends aren't evil)?
   

Slide deck: "The New Rules of Corporate Communications: Business Ethics and the Rise of Business Blogging"

To download a PDF of my slide deck, such as it is, click the image above or this link:

new-rules-of-corp-comm

If you attended or have on-topic feedback, comments, or, please, for heaven's sake, answers!, please use the Leave a Reply area below to chime in.

Tipping point for business participation in social media

A recent post by Shandi on the Golden Capital Network blog alludes to the challenge of keeping up with the latest communications methods. He alludes to Twitter as an example of a new technology that’s reached a tipping point.

He writes:

Brooks Jordan discusses trends, for instance, Twitter and why and how some things are successful, when some are not. In the digital age there is so much growth. How does one keep up with it all and who gets left behind?

(In my own experience it’s more challenging to keep up with questions/comments on LinkedIn, and questions/comments in business blogs I follow, than it is to keep up with Twitter updates — but that’s probably just me. Also, I find Malcolm Gladwell the most illuminating regarding tipping points – his ideas are summarized in this Tipping Point wikipedia entry.)

Anyway, after the long excerpt from Jordan, Shandi says,

Everyone needs to realize that the digital world will go on whether we learn to change with it or not. Might as well, roll up our sleeves and stop sniveling and get down to business.

Cone’s 2008 Business in Social Media Study Fact Sheet says that sixty percent of Americans use social media, and of those, 59 percent interact with companies on social media Web sites. One in four interacts more than once per week.

I’ve posted two of their charts at our site.

To Shandi’s point: yes, let’s roll up sleeves and get cracking. After all, what’s the alternative? Not striving to keep up? That would be like deciding not to use email anymore because I get alot of it. 

On the bright side

If you would like to tone your business-participation-in-social-media networking muscles, you can meet me in these forums:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/b2bcommunicate

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/b2bcommunications

Red On Marketing Blog: http://blog.b2bcommunications.com/

Business ethics discussions on deck

Two good sessions are coming up in Sacramento on business ethics - one on Oct 20th and one on Nov 18th. They're listed from most to least important (Elisabeth's talk will be twice as good as mine) - which turns out to be reverse chronological order.

 

Nov 18h: "Moral Courage & Ethical Decisions" at eWomen Network

Elisabeth Brinton will give a talk on Moral Courage & Ethical Decisions at November 18th eWomen forum. Registration

Brinton was recently named one of the "Women Who Mean Business", 2008 Business Women of the Year award winners for the Sacramento region by the Business Journal. She serves as an appointed official in Governor Schwarzenegger's Committee for the Employment of People with Disabilities, helping in job creation and equal opportunity for all California citizens.

Here is part of the talk's description:

As businesswomen and leaders we have the opportunity to address the need of our times: re-establishing moral courage and ethical leadership. Each of us has the opportunity to lead by example...

 

Oct 20th: "The New Rules of Business Communications: Business Ethics and the Rise of Business Blogging" at CSUS

I'll lead a discussion the week after next at the CSUS Symposium on Personal and Professional Integrity in Business. It's a day-long event on the Sacramento State University campus, in the Hinde Auditorium of the University Union. Here's a campus and parking map.

The keynote is 9:30-10:50 a.m. by Dr. Edwin Hartman, Stern School of Business, New York University, on "Aristotle on Character and Integrity"

My session runs 3:00-4:15 p.m. Session III - title: "The New Rules of Business Communications - Business Ethics and the Rise of Business Blogs"

 

The new rules of corporate communication

Building on the popular ideas in the book "The New Rules of PR" by David Meerman Scott, I'll try to describe what I've just recently decided to call "The New Rules of Corporate Communications." Roughly, the idea (not originating with me - credits below) is that, unlike a few years ago, in today's world corporate communicators should:

Be an individual with a personality, not a unit with a title
Speak in a real, authentic voice... be vulnerable (credit: D.M. Scott)
Invite dialogue and improvements
Avoid patronizing guru-speak (credit: Tom Pick)
Zap jargon and double-speak before it starts (like gingivitis!)
Don't be boring (this has nothing to do with ethics. Just don't be boring.)

I'll use 3 examples as a jumping off point for group discussion of the relationship between professional ethics and the New Rules of Corporate Communications. More info

“Web Marketing in 2009″ – a SARTA seminar

Cris Rominger and I will lead the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA) Leadership Series seminar titled “How to Succeed at Web Marketing in 2009″ on Wednesday, October 15, 2008.

About this web marketing seminar

Details

Succeeding at web marketing is important for virtually all businesses – but none more so than early stage and small firms. Web marketing can bring outsized returns for a relatively modest investment. Plus, you can see what exactly works with your audience, unlike in offline mediums.

In a recent survey of 1,000 business decision makers by marketing research firm Enquiro, 92 percent of respondents said they turn to online resources in the early stages of the buying cycle. And 77 percent named Google as their first choice among all search engines.

In this session we’ll show you charts and examples of what works and what doesn’t in web marketing today and 9 ways to make your business website work harder for you. You may be able to do all the steps yourself.

Attendees get a briefing and question-and-answer session plus a checklist, charts, samples of effective websites, and case studies.

Registration link

Ex-member, ex-fan

The National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) appears to have handed over my contact information to guys who want to pitch me on everything from spa treatments to financial advice.

Again.

Sharing my contact info with all comers is a great example of worst practices in building trust with a contact base - of trading high customer lifetime value for short term gain.

Business Communications Group was a member of the NAWBO Sacramento Valley Chapter several years ago. I volunteered as well, directing the chapter's marketing efforts while on the Board.

MarketingSherpa and other researchers have shown that business people at all levels and in every industry and job function are quick to tune out or block senders whose messages do not, for one reason or another, resonate with them. They control who gets into their inbox and what sort of content they receive - either by selecting specific types of communications from their preferred senders, or by turning them off. Turning off and tuning out can happen through unsubscribing, marking a sender as a ‘blocked sender,' or marking a message as spam.

Failing to give contacts control over types of content, frequency, and mode of communication puts an organization at risk of being ‘tuned out' or, worse, destroying trust and decreasing its perceived value.

In this particular case, all those negatives apply. Today, I'm not just an ex-member. I'm an ex-fan.

Thumbs up on latest BtoBonline webcast

As the latest BtoB Magazine webcast,  “How to Leverage Online Communities for B2B Marketing,”got underway, I visited the launch page for a link to the webcast’s major sponsor, ITtoolbox .

The result? Nada.

I really wouldn’t pick on them for this oversight, if it weren’t for the fact that real-world examples can teach us much about best practices.

So, my apologies, ITtoolbox marketing team, for calling it out. But I fear that omitting a link from the event lobby might mean you have no click through stats on visits to ITtoolbox from the BtoB webcast event lobby. I definitely did not get routed to a customized landing page that helps move BtoB subscribers to accept the next offer: membership… and ultimately abandoned the site, for reasons I describe below.

I fear too that, as a result of omitting that all-important link from the event lobby to a customized landing page, the ITtoolbox marketing team might not get maximum dollar for dollar ROI on the webcast sponsorship – or indeed be able to measure ROI.

Going forward, this issue could be overcome with a few hours content writing and web development guided by MarketingSherpa’s Landing Page Handbook, so aptly described in Brian Carroll’s post Landing Page Handbook: How to Raise Conversions by 40% (get the handbook – worth every red cent if you’re responsible for conversions at your company’s site – at Landing Page Handbook: How to Raise Conversions).

I did accurately guess ITtoolbox’s URL, accepted a membership, started to complete a profile, and began searching for blogs to track and sub-groups to join. I got the impression that community creators want folks to blog and wiki about technical issues like software code. I’m not whining about their focus, I’m just mystified about the push to get me, a Sacramento marketing consultant, to join in the fun.

I abandoned the profile completion because there doesn’t seem to be a community of people at the site who are like me or could use my perspective.

Back to the BtoB webcast content.

One of the two most useful slides was provided by Booker Ellis. He discussed the shift in B2B PR and ad budgets from editorial and paid placements in traditional business media, toward user-generated business media. Here’s the matrix he developed to illustrate the point:

(Credit: Ellis Booker, Editor, BtoB magazine)

I wonder if perhaps the content-rich Technorati might be a better choice for the upper right quadrant, if we’re seeking companies emblematic of user-generated business media. I find LinkedIn great for keeping up with professional contacts but light on user-generated content – despite the fact that they make it very easy to connect one’s profile with one’s feed.

(Sidebar: Of the 2 contacts in my LinkedIn network that have linked their feed to their profile, there’s 1 I want to disconnect with — but is there any way to disconnect with people on LinkedIn – ?)

That said, Booker’s ‘evolving media landscape’ slide raises several interesting ideas. Among them is how this mapping approach might apply to the evolving agency landscape.

If Sacramento marketing consultants, for example, were mapped to this sort of matrix, a handful of nimble Web 2.0-savvy marketing agencies would sit in the top right quadrant; by contrast, I think all but one of the large Sacramento PR and ad agencies would sit in the bottom left area – due to their continuing focus on paid and editorial placements in traditional consumer media. (Friends at local large agencies, feel free to set me straight.)

Perhaps someone out there could establish a wiki-style forum for nailing down where Sacramento marketing consultants sit in such a matrix. Helping prospects see where various Sacramento marketing firms sit regarding Web 2.0 technologies is an idea that’s been rattling around in the back of my head for a couple of years — it was first inspired by SARTA’s effort to show the genealogy of Sacramento technology firms — but I never seem to get around to it.

Last item worth passing along: Jeff Zabin of Aberdeen Group noted the explosion in social media by huge enterprises, and provided this compelling image: 

(Credit: Jeff Zabin, Research Fellow, Customer Management practice, Aberdeen Group)

Having a collection of enterprise perspectives on marketing via social media could be very useful when it comes to steering marketing budget allocations for the remainder of ‘08. And it conveys – to me, anyway - that we might be in a Web 3.0 world now.