Steal This Blog Post

Abbie Hoffman's dissident treatise on how to survive in "Amerika" inspired a fairly tortuous train of thought for me this morning as I foraged through my various social networks in search of professionals who might be interested in hearing about the solutions and services that my company offers. Perhaps more the title than a deep analysis of Hoffman's metaphor, got me thinking about the way we are currently measuring our impact in the social media and networking world as a count of followers, ReTweets, connections, etc. rather than applying a value metric to those who read our posts, thoughts, or just subscribe. Many B2B's have jumped on the proverbial Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook bandwagons with corporate profiles and individual contributors, but are we ready and able to efficaciously measure the resources we are expending in these efforts in any other fashion that a self-congratulatory column in TweetDeck that captures mentions? A 2009 CMO study still indicates that we as business marketers and relationship specialists are still failing to leverage the voice of our customers and business intelligence in any comprehensive and effective fashion (http://www.cmocouncil.org/news/pr/2009/012609.asp). What a shame. In previous posts, I have suggested that we develop a comprehensive strategy for our social media and networking engagement that aligns with our overall marketing and business strategy; that we perform a social media risk assessment; or at the bare minimum, we listen to what our customer, competitors and others are saying about us. The tools to support these efforts are evolving, slowly, but they are becoming available at all levels of investment. And now, we have another caution in the form of the FTC guidelines for branding and advocating on-line. My strong suggestion, is that those of you who are ready to throw up your hands; leave the SMN world (as Verizon seems to be doing on Twitter); or continue to adopt a wait and see attitude, decide instead to return to the basics….

Some simple steps:

1. Update your Business Marketing, Sales, Customer Satisfaction, and Lead Generation Strategies to potentially incorporate the use of social media and networking. Some very simple tools are available that you may already have in your kit. For example, Hoover's subscribers can see any connections in Linkedin that they have for the company they are researching. This provides an alternative outreach method that is slightly warmer than an email campaign using a paid-list. If I am a member of the same group as a prospect, we naturally have some shared areas of interest.
   
2. Retool your messaging to be appropriate for the social media or networking applications that you decide is appropriate for your organization. Clearly, a full case study cannot be Tweeted and just Tweeting a link doesn't compel the reader to click. Try and provide the right information within the application itself and then provide a link for more.
   
3. Assess the power and cost-effectiveness of including audio/video/photos in your social media and networking campaigns. Numerous studies indicate that website conversion rates and clicks increase when multi-media is introduced in our messaging. I have tested this anecdotally in my own accounts and the Tweets and profile updates that include multi-media have a 5x number of hits versus a plain message.
   
4. Reassess your strategy and the application marketplace at minimum every six months, preferably more often. Add-on apps to all of the SMN tools are proliferating daily and are worth some attention.
   
5. Continue to refine your definition of meaningful social engagement and your processes for turning listeners or those who comment into clients and promoters.
   
6. Don't just count the numbers! Although it gives me a secret sense of pride to have a connection request granted or find someone who I consider a guru following me, I can't honestly say that I effectively mine these numbers to determine the value to my messaging efforts.
   

Just some humble thoughts…..Please STEAL THIS POST! J

Warmest,

Lisa Hoesel

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True Tales from The Twitterverse-Where did VZ Go?

In my last post, I shared, with some trepidation but more excitement, that Verizon had initiated a digital conversation with me via Twitter after an unfortunate phone-based customer service experience that I was reporting live. I've re-told this story a number of times in various environments over the last couple of weeks and have been hopeful that I would be able to report that a successful expansion of this digital dance between my internet/wireless/landline/ provider and myself. A brief re-cap:

I called the dreaded 800 number after discovering that my electronic VZ payment had not posted and I had inadvertently double-paid. I got lost and transferred and scared in customer service phone-land and began Tweeting the hold time, multiple transfers, and mounting frustration. The next day, VZ began following me on Twitter and we began "chatting".

Since our initial "introduction" Verizon and I have exchanged a couple of DM's and my ego was massaged by the following message and the fact that a Verizon FIOS technician began following me (we don't have FIOS in our little burg and I desperately want it!):

VZHelpNetworkThank you for your interest in our site. Please look at @Verizon as our SMN Strategy evolves.6:04 AM Sep 4th

Now, I'm in post-third-date-no-phone-call mode…..I know that I am one of millions served by Verizon, but I really thought we had some sparks. As Verizon is in trial-mode for their Twitter Help service, I assumed that they would be as excited about my willingness to openly and passionately share my thoughts and ideas with them. Big Sigh; lessons in humility learned; opportunity to re-affirm some basic Social Media and Networking principles for clients that I coach:

JOIN: In order to participate in a digital dialogue, you have to join the conversation. Verizon is clearly testing the conversational waters and I applaud their efforts here. Be present in the same conversational forums as your clients, prospects, and competitors.

INTRODUCE: Don't just wear the proverbial digital nametag; share some basic information about yourself beyond your name. Verizon "told" me why they were on Twitter and reaching out to me; all of us should do the same as we are reaching out to our various digital audiences.

OFFER: Bring some current news, updates, helpful suggestions, CONTENT to the party. As I have been following @VZHelpNetwork over the last couple of weeks, I can't help but notice that most of their Tweets begin with "I'm sorry you're having some trouble." It would be nice to see some links to other Verizon resources, suggestions, solutions that could inform and educate us all. I have also repeated ad nauseum in the past that if you are going to publicly dialogue with others in these applications, at least let the rest of us in on the nature of the conversation! Don't be exclusionary; use this as the opportunity to demonstrate your true helpfulness!

EXPAND: I have been suggesting to clients that they look at the networks of people that they follow or to whom they are connected for ways of expanding their audiences, prospects, clients, etc. It stands to reason that the friends, family and colleagues that are following me could very well be Verizon clients! What an opportunity for Verizon Help to turn not only me, but a host of my connections into positive testimonials for them!

LISTEN: I know, based on this experience that Verizon has begun to experience some digital ear burning, but are they just hearing the commentary of their customers or are they really listening. Some time back, I wrote about the difference between "hearing" and "listening" in the digital B2B conversation. I think that if we are going to commit to providing service via social media and networking, we really need to fine tune our "hearing" acuity and respond specifically rather than generically to questions that are posed. I don't think that we have to create specific and distinct messages for each digital dialogue, but I do think we need to do more than just acknowledge the questions of our clients and provide "templatized" responses. To the extent that our resources allow, truly individualized our response in digital conversation goes along way toward the longevity of the customer satisfaction.

I developed a somewhat tongue-in-cheek Digital Conversation Scoring System for a client as a way to relate my belief that a digital conversation should emulate as much as possible our Face-to-Face interactions:

Lisa's Digital Conversation Scoring System

• I would walk across hot coals to engage you in a chat again!
  


• I would chat with you at some length and then ask our friends to join us!
  


• I would re-introduce myself, ask you how you have been, inquire about any new events, and either continue or excuse myself depending upon your response.
  


• I would wait until you approached me to engage with you.
  


• I would hide in the women's restroom or walk down a different aisle at the grocery store to avoid a conversation.
  


• I don't know you, have never been introduced to you, and I don't know anybody who knows you so I can't have a conversation with you, although I might listen to you if I am trapped and need a cure for my insomnia.
  

Today, Verizon is at a three, because I do applaud their efforts and am curious about the evolution of their Twitter Trial.

Stay-tuned and as always, my warmest regards,

Click on Links Twice; Insert Links Once

Often, I am so excited to share information with my colleagues, friends, and family that I hit the send, paste, publish buttons far too soon. Being an English/Poli-Sci major by secondary education, I am pretty particular about spelling and grammar, but my vision for the message that I want to convey and the perception of the material that I am sending to you does not always mesh with the way that you will perceive or even review the same material. I have been schooling myself in techniques for reviewing my blog posts, emails, HTML creations, etc. from a variety of angles and humbling myself to ask for second opinions, thoughts and feedback. The rapidity and ease with which I can publish my thoughts in abbreviated 140 character Tweets and in a flash, copy and paste a web link into an email message or share it on my Facebook profiles only exacerbates the risk. The social media and networking applications that are so prevalent today often do NOT offer a "preview" option. Once it's out there, it's out there. Let me provide an illustration:

Our company's CEO recently presented to a group of entrepreneurs at a local networking function. His presentation was phenomenally well received and post-event, published on the host's online site. Their ezine focuses on a wide variety of innovations and futuristic ideas and is quite an interesting read and platform for the genius entrepreneurs of today. We certainly wanted to promote our CEO's slide deck, presentation and thoughts as much as possible (read, "We're proud of you, Bossman!") and so immediately jumped to inserting a link to their ezine on our corporate Facebook profile…without enough review….without testing the link in a different environment…without really realizing that the message that was being sent inadvertently focused on the ezine and NOT on the presentation. Why? Because we used the homepage link for the ezine rather than the full page link. Maybe this wouldn't have been a big deal (or blog post fodder) if I hadn't happened to be posting something to our corporate Facebook profile later and happened to click on the link…and went to the home page of the ezine….which updates throughout the day with new articles about new innovations and ideas….which at that moment happened to be something called "Machine Condoms" which are rubber sleeves that one can place over the handles of public gym equipment to avoid common viruses, bacteria, and the dreaded workout flesh-eating infections. To find the presentation, I had to use the search option on the site and type in our CEO's name, which had I been a casual visitor to our Facebook site, I may not have known. (Later the ezine home page featured an article about EATING CAMEL) As I have administrative authority over the Facebook site, I immediately removed the link and later replaced the update and link with one that takes the visitor directly to the intended page and review of the presentation.

In this particular situation, a remedy was quickly applied and we are assuming, with digital fingers crossed, that no adverse consequences will be forthcoming. Imagine the possible scenarios with a different type of organization wanting to showcase their CEO's presentation and a perhaps even odder online environment: The American Medical Association Neurological Symposium speaker and a misdirected or mistyped link that takes visitors to a study on cannibalism and mad cow disease misdiagnoses; a profile bio of one of your key executives, featured in an online magazine and the current volume ALSO features an article about CEO's at the many bail-out companies; your conservative pastor's sermon included in a directory of press coverage of lawsuits against the Catholic church. The room for error is Grand Canyon-esque, given the complexity and nuance of the WEB 2.0 world and our inability to control the environments in which we are found, even when we digitally place ourselves in them.

I offer some pre-publishing pointers:

1. As always, think about the message that you are sending, especially in the social media and networking environment. Just because we are configuring our messages differently, doesn't mean that they shouldn't carry the same tone and branding as our standard marketing collateral. They may be shorter; friendlier; even funny, but they should still be on target and not muddied by the content surrounding them.
   


2. 
   
   Click on links twice, three, four times, before you include and publish them in profiles, Tweets, email messages etc. Not only do we want to double-check our work and that the links are not broken, but often they will display differently in different environments. And the site to which we are linking may change its content often so the look and feel that was appropriate, interesting, etc. at one point during the day may NOT be later.
   
   
   

   -Click on the links using different browsers, if you're NOT sure that your audience is all IE
   

   
   

   -Test the links and the email messages with different versions of desktop/laptop software
   

   
   

   -Create your messages, .pdf's, audio and video clips, and email templates in the MOST common (notice I didn't write LEAST) version of the software
   



3. Sign up for your own RSS feed; test email campaigns, Facebook Fan Clubs, etc. Review the materials, links, and posts as they will appear to your audience; not just in preview or beta mode.
   


4. Have someone else review your messaging, if possible, prior to hitting send and publish.
   


5. Look at the context to which you are connecting. Think about whether the reader's attention is focused on the context OR your content.
   


6. Spell and grammar check. (J Had to slip that one in, again.)
   


7. Conduct a Social Media Audit and Risk Assessment before venturing into the land of Twitter and Facebook, et al.
   


8. Designate more than one administrative authority that can pull the plug if necessary.
   

For us, the error was more or less quickly rectified and has become a source of good-natured ribbing and light-hearted Friday email banter. It could have been worse….a lot worse.

I hope you find this edifying and amusing and as always, my best until next one….

Lisa

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