Buzz Marketing for Technology

CMO Challenges in Driving Data into Insights

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:47:11 PST

A good friend and former colleague of mine Dan Neely, CEO of Networked Insights reminded me recently that there will be more data created in this year than in the previous 5000 years combined!

With all this data the question many CMOs wrestle with is – How to manage so much data from so many sources and separate systems to drive insights on how customers behave? With the goal being a seamless and consistent experience as customers and prospects pin pong across a variety of channels.

A recent Forrester report called The Intelligent Approach to Customer Intelligence does a good job outlining the challenges of creating data that can truly be used for driving strategic marketing decisions (what they call Strategic Intelligence).

But for most B2B marketers like myself – we tend to optimize by the channel of data that we have. For example I get: Social Media reports, Blog data reports, Website data reports, Campaign data reports, Launch result reports, Traditional Media reports, Lead reports and of course Budget reports to name just a few. With all these endless reports no wonder it ‘feels’ like we never can get any true customer insights – since all we can do is look down these channels and get a singular view of customer activity.

This doesn’t take into account some of the more forward looking ideas like tracking not just mentions of the brand online but Conversations as well as Facebook Insights reports and coming soon Mobile marketing reports!

I agree with the premise of Forrester’s article that we have to start heading toward Enterprise-wide customer data but its not a simple black and white path. And furthermore the path is unique to each company. Since each one of us has a different variety of reports coming a litany of systems like SAS, Aprimo, Webtrends, iCrossing, Radian6, Facebook, Vocus, Wordpress and where it isn’t automated then it’s just Excel.

To create data that can truly put you on the path to Strategic Intelligence has to become one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2010. If you have any insights on how best to get there please share them.

What to look for in a Social Media Marketer?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:26:20 PST

Now that we are beginning to feel the relief of the economic uncertainty that has been hanging around us for the past few months, I am beginning to hear a lot about the invention of some new roles inside organizations looking to get “social media”.

Typically this means hire someone who knows our “space” really well and someone who is an expert in social media.

Well it’s the latter part that is the hard part. Consider that in Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book The Outliers he goes into a discussion about Violinists and how long it takes them to become a master at their craft. So without spoiling the book for you – the bottom line was – it takes 10,000 hours to become a Master Violinist. This got me thinking about how it could apply to Social Media and how long it would take to become a Social Media Expert.

So if you practice Social Media on the job for a few hours a day, let’s say 3 hours a day learning more about social media and 2 hours a day practicing social media times 5 days a week that means you could become a social media master in 7.6 years. Throw in the weekends and that drops to 5.5 years! But wait, social media hasn’t been around that long!

So since you can’t hire an expert, what qualities would make for a good social media marketer? Here are 4 macro competences to look for:

1) Story telling – in social media you need to tell good stories, stories that people will be attracted to, identify with and want to share. Story telling is key!

2) Packaging – they need to be able to package the stories up and be able to make them shareable this means the content can be found in a variety of media forms not just one.

3) Reach – they need to know how to reach people with their content, the more forms the better. So that means they need to be fluent in many social media sites.

4) Measure – and finally the hardest part for most people is the measurement of the effectiveness of the media and the efficiency of the story being spread in those media.

5 Tricks to B2B Marketing Socially

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:36:30 PST

Whenever I ask members of sales team from around the globe what they need – the answer never changes – more case studies. Its not to say that we don’t respond but for whatever reason it takes a village to get a single case study done.

The reason the sales team loves case studies is it gives them evidence. Evidence for them to start a conversation around your solution and gauge whether there is a need with the potential buyer they are talking to.

Then how do B2B Marketers use that content with Social Media to do the same - here are 5 tricks to Marketing B2B content socially ...

1) Tell good Stories - You have a new kind of marketing evolving now – a marketing that is driven by good stories. I think Story Telling is going to be a huge component of the marketers tool kit going forward since the web and social media adore good stories.

2) Make them Sticky - But not just any stories – for example boring stories of an ERP implementation aren’t going to go viral any time soon. But stories that are “sticky” will – but even if you cant have a really sticky story you can at least write about what people care about and in a way in which they will care – ex 7 Ways Facebook will Change your Life was downloaded 10,000 times in the course of a month because it’s a sticky story.

3) Think Friction Free - Think about the friction involved in the packaging of your content and find a way to remove friction from the process. Typical friction-laden processes and long registration forms are usually the culprit so think about circumventing them by uploading to sites like SlideShare give you an easy way to access an audience that can engage with your content.

4) Launch them with all available media - Think about how to maximize your reach into every available channel or media. Find a way to take the core idea and distribute into every possible niche of consumer attention – get creative and leverage that story to maximize the mileage you can get from it.

5) Measure Reach, Efficiency and Value - If you are going to go through the trouble of putting your content out there – why not gauge the effectiveness of the content by measuring how many people you reach, how efficient that reach was (did they click through to learn more, did it drive website visits up, did they register for more information on your site) and finally what value did that bring – a newly minted lead in your database is worth something and it gives you a stream of leads to nurture to the point that you can hand them to your sales team as a sales ready lead that they can close!

The Tipping Point and your Contact Center

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:06:24 PST

Back in the year 2000, Malcolm Gladwell published his landmark book called The Tipping Point. And little did he know 9 years later he would have set the stage for how many Contact Centers handle Social Media?

Let me explain …

Many of the most Socially advanced Contact Centers today are using tools to listen in on Conversations. Conversations that are happening about their brand, conversations that are happening about their competition, and of course conversations that revolve around Customer Support! Customer Support makes for an easy anchor of any good Social Media strategy so it stands to reason that Customer Support would play a leading role when it comes to listening in on Conversations.

But today’s listening and analytical technology for social conversations are still in their infancy. So many Contact Center managers find themselves using their listening tools to find Support opportunities and then manually “cutting and pasting” them into email to send to the agent that can best handle the inquiry.

In his book, Gladwell describes "agents of change" like the Connectors who are the people who "link us up with the world”. He characterizes these individuals as having social networks of over one hundred people. And the Mavens who are "information specialists", or "people we rely upon to connect us with new information." They accumulate knowledge, especially about the marketplace, and know how to share it with others.

So in effect the Contact Center Manager acts as the Social Agent of Change, more specifically in the role as the “Connector” linking up the worlds social requests to the best qualified Agent who then plays the role of the “Maven” or information specialist.

While this is a great role for the Contact Center to play it has 2 distinct pitfalls. First is this approach while admirable is just not scaleable. Too much manual intervention and we need to evolve the analytical tools take the place of the “Connector” role. Second we are going to need to get to a place where all this is trackable and measurable rather than unstructured workloads.

Some Weeks are Hard to Top!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:45:30 PST

Last week was the perfect storm of 3 major life moments all coming together in one week to form the perfect trifecta. It’s a week that is going to be hard to top in Dunay history but don’t put it past me to try!

It all started Friday, Oct 23rd when my wife came into the house and said “oh yeah, I think your books have arrived – I saw a whole bunch of boxes out by the garage”. Little did she know in that moment I became a published author! I spent the weekend packing up copies of Fac e book Marketing for Dummies (Wiley) and sending them to family, friends, long time mentors but most importantly to influencers who I would love to have review the book.

Monday, Oct 26th rolled around and I was privy to some huge news that was going to be announced – no it wasn’t just my son's 11th birthday – but BtoB Magazine (a Crain’s publication) voted me onto their list of Top 25 Marketers of the Year 2009! I could barely wait to see it in print or have it go live on their website so I could share it with everyone. It’s one of those serious industry honors and one that I have been hoping, praying and striving to achieve.

And to top it all off, Friday Oct 30th I got to appear on my favorite web TV show – H ubSpot TV live from Boston. I have been a long time fan of HubSpot TV and I have seen every episode. So when Mike Volpe offered to have me on as a guest around the time of my book launch - I jumped at it. My only reservation was that it was so close to Halloween that they might want me to appear in costume. But when I got there and saw the entire staff of HubSpot dressed in costume, I knew it was time to just go for it. So I ended up appearing as Hulk Hogan – which if I must say – I thought I looked pretty good as the Hulk!

I want to point out that none of this would have been possible without the unending support of my wife and family, close friends, and many of you along the way keeping me inspired to achieve new heights. This blog has been the single most important thing I have ever done and has opened doors to meeting new people, writing books (hint another one may be in the works) and learning more about a topic that I am so passionate about. And to that end I am feeling a renewed sense of energy around my blog, so look for more learnings each week as I report back in real time what I have learned.

I have to thank (again) my inspiration for this blog – Keith Ferrazzi. In February 2006 while on holiday in Costa Rica I read Never Eat Alone. And while the point of his book was about how to network more effectively, on pages 100-101 he covers the topic of sharing your passions via a blog. I made up my mind that day that when I got home I would do what I had been contemplating for a while and start this blog. Little did Keith know it but he changed the course of my life with just a few keystrokes.

Use Social Media to spot issues before they hit the Contact Center!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:35:23 PDT

Firey laptop batteries, defective chips, tainted foods, toothpaste that stains teeth – these are just some real examples of issues that struck companies recently that might have been headed off at the pass by Social Media.

When you have an issue these days – what’s the first place you go for more information? That’s right – the Internet – most likely Google but increasingly for real time information search you might use Twitter. Conversely most people don’t just pick up the phone and call a company anymore.

Some of these issues first showed up on Twitter way before they ever hit the Contact Center. Perhaps days before anyone called into the Contact Center to inquire.

With the speed of Social Media these days – wouldn’t you love to have a few day head start? Well you do – but only if you are listening.

A peer of mine said that she has seen this effect already on Twitter but she doesn’t jump at the first sighting – she waits to see at least a second sighting perhaps in a different channel (or coming from a different region) before she decides to engage.

While clearly you need to use your best judgment – you do have the opportunity to head off at the pass serious issues for your brand before they become front page news. The only caveat is, you have to be listening …

Spend More Time Planning your Content Strategy!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:12:34 PDT

Because of my new book, Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley), which is launching next week - I have been getting a lot of emails and questions from my readers that are very focused on launching their Facebook and Twitter presence.

Seems to me like these channels have gone mainstream in the minds of many marketers as evidenced by the number of inquires about these channels and also by my mom's Facebook profile and my dad's Twitter feed! But what scares me even more than that is the seemingly singleminded focus on the launch of these mediums rather than conversational aspect.

Everyone seems content to dive right in and start planning their presence on these channels but is missing the point from a marketing perspective. Much like the old adage "people spend more time planning the wedding than they spend planning the marriage".

The point is you need to plan the flow of content that will go into these channels. If you already have a blog, podcast series or video series you can effectively use Facebook or Twitter to attract another audience to interact and create conversations with those assets.

Facebook Content Syndication Tips

And there are a variety of ways to syndicate content on your Facebook Fan page. You can use the Notes page to import blog posts to your Fan page, you can use the My Del.icio.us application to import any bookmarks you may have made in your Del.icio.us account, you can use the Simply RSS application to bring in RSS feeds you may have on your company website, you can edit your links section of have a variety of blogs or websites you may want to highlight perhaps by employees or partners of your company, and don’t forget to edit your Feed settings to include the complete versions of all your blog posts so they appear not only on your Fan page but on the Feeds of all your fans.

The channels you choose will only be as good as the content you publish with them. Spend more time on the content and the plans for future content if you really want to create a strong pull of interested prospects with those channels!

Why Social Strategies are Difficult for Agencies to execute?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:14:16 PDT

Many agencies today are offering Social Media services (if they aren’t they need to). But for many of them it is often hard to architect the strategy since so much of the knowledge of ‘who to go to’ for ‘what type of Social Media conversation’ is very internal knowledge.

A good Social Media strategy starts with looking at what Conversations you want to engage in, what Objectives you have for engaging in those conversations, what Strategy you will have to fulfill on those objectives and finally what Technology you will use to get there.

In order to plan that out for a client, the agency can work with them to get a sense for the Conversations a brand should be engaged in, what Objectives they should have for engaging in these conversation, what strategy will best fulfill on your objective and what technology to use. But where Agencies typically are challenged is on the “who” part of the equation – “who” will be the person best suited to represent the brand for a particular type of conversation.

Agencies have to get internally savvy fast to navigate the waters of an organization and this typically doesn’t happen overnight. Or perhaps they need to find the “super connector” within the organization who can help them articulate who to go to as point of contact for those conversations.

So when you are working with an outside agency on helping you with your Social Media strategy the best place to focus your efforts to help them is in the identification and recruitment of strong personas who can represent your brand in some very specific conversations.

Interview with Leading Sales Expert: Jim Keenan

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:41:46 PDT

I had a chance to interview Jim Keenan, the author of the blog A Sales Guy - specifically to get his take on what marketers need to be doing to help sales more. Here is his take ...

1) Why do you think it so hard for marketers to tune into what is effective at the sales level?

Marketing is “passive selling”. I think the problem is execution and rests in two places. The first is with corporate structure. Companies can do a better job at integrating the two functions. Marketing and Sales need to be tightly integrated with the same incentive and management plans. I don't see this enough. I don't know too many companies where the marketing people are on the same quota plan as the sales people. Marketing supports sales, if sales fails, not sure how marketing can be successful. The creative component is the other problem. I get the need the need for creativity in marketing, however all too often the creativity gets in the way of the message. If it looks cool, is hip, and wins awards for creativity, but doesn't increase sales isn't worth anything.

2) What do you think is the most important thing a marketer can do for you to help you sell?

Create a compelling story. I think marketing forgets this sometimes. I see a lot of slick, aesthetically appealing campaigns, but they lack a story. Marketing has an interesting, and I’ll admit, difficult job. They have to connect with their audience through indirect, passive mediums. As sales people we get to talk to folks directly. Sales has the benefit of engagement. If we say the wrong thing, miss the mark with a point, we usually get a second chance to correct it and get back on track. Marketers don't have that. If their campaign misses the mark they're in trouble. This is why marketers HAVE to be compelling story tellers. If they miss the mark they don't get a second chance.

It reminds me of the failed Nissan campaign in the early 90's, when Nissan launched the Acura Brand. They didn't show the car for the first few weeks. They ran ads talking about it coming, and how great it was going to be. But they never showed it. It was a cool campaign; it had intrigue, and was hip. But it didn't work. People couldn't act. The story wasn't compelling. People love cars for what they look like. And until Nissan showed you the car, it didn't matter what else they said.

Compelling stories gives sales a hook. Think of fishing; Marketing baits the hook, finds the best fishing grounds and sets the hook. They then pass the rod to sales to real it in. A compelling story is the bait. Sales needs good bait.

3) What 3 pieces of advice would you give anyone in Sales?

Sales comprises of three simple things: Access, Influence and Delivery. Anything a sales person does MUST impact one of those. It must get them access to their customers, the people buying what they are selling. It must help them influence those they get access to, if you have access, yet can't influence you're dead. It must help you deliver on what you say. If you get access, wield great influence, but can't deliver, it will be a one time sale. Knowing this the advice I give is;

1) You better know your customers business and industry as good if not better than they do. Sales people are business enablers. They provide companies with the tools and information necessary to run their business. Extensive knowledge of your customers business and industry or market gets you access AND allows you to develop tremendous influence. 2) Be an analyst. When it comes to your customer analyze EVERYTHING, their markets, their strategy, their competition, their reasons for doing what they do, the solutions, the timing, the results, the plans, the people, the motives and then ask WHY, why are they doing it that way, why that approach, why that strategy, why that person WHY . . . ask it of yourself, and your customer. Learn how to get to why. The answer is in the why. 3) Believe in what you sell. Ya, I know it's trite, but it's true. When someone believes to the fiber of their bones their solution, product can make a difference, it shows. 3 1/2 Be creative. Do things differently. Look at them from a different lens. Push back on the status quo. Be as creative as you can be. 3 3/4 - Bust your hump. No one is coming. Out work everyone else!

4) How has the Sales function changed as a result of the economy?

It's pretty simple. Budgets are tighter and sales take more justification. It's become harder. It's simple supply and demand. Less money is being spent on fewer things therefore the competition is greater. The sales function itself hasn't change. It's the execution of the function that has been impacted. Those that can execute better at Access, Influence, and Deliver will be successful. I don't think it's anything earth shattering. The economy is just forcing people to be better at what they were doing in the first place.

5) What impact do you think Social will have on the Sales function?

Social media IS having a huge impact on sales today and will continue to have an even greater impact as it matures. Social Media is changing the game when it comes to access and influence. SM is providing new opportunities for sales people to exponentially grow their sphere of influence. Social Sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook give sales people unprecedented access to potential clients at all levels. The ability to connect and establish relationships with clients has never been easier. A new form of access is being created. This new access provides sales people with leads and opportunities once hidden from the world in person to person verbal conversations or the invisible conversation. Access to these "invisible conversations" is game changing. My favorite example of this happened back in April where an executive Tweeted about her "over the top" pushy sales rep and then tweeted 2 hours after about the pushy sales rep competitor seeing the tweet finding her number and calls to "pitch." Get the full story here. I see cold calling also becoming an antiquated way to connect in the not to distant future. SM is also providing sales people with tremendous information about the customers, and their companies. Tools like Gist will change the information game, providing sales people with real-time, relevant information about their buyers, their companies and their competitors increasing their influence.

Sales is all about Access, Influence and Delivery and social media is changing the access and influence game.

Jim Keenan is a Sr. Sales Executive, Enterprise 2.0/Web 2.0 Connector, an Entrepreneur still trying to get it right, and a PSIA Certified Ski Instructor for Vail Resorts. Husband to the Big E and 4 great kids. In a nut shell, he's a Sales Guy and life is good!

Social Media will Disrupt every Function in your Company

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:34:00 PDT

We are at an interesting inflection point with Social Media today. One that threatens to disrupt and reinvent every function in your company over the next few years.

Social Media already has changed Marketing forever. You can’t attend a conference or read a blog post without hearing about the latest in this field. Marketing is still playing catch up and will be for a while since we are still at the very early stages of the Social Media game. What makes this different from the adoption of the Web or CRM is that Social Media is changing so much more than those technologies ever did. This makes it harder to keep up.

Social Media is having a big impact on Customer Service as evidenced by all the issues our teams are handling each week for Avaya. We see between 1000-2500 mentions of Avaya each week alone and engage with dozens of customers in any given week. This is very different than even 6 months ago.

Product companies will have a strong social approach to product development using Social Media. Pure Service companies will work with virtual teams to source and deliver work from far flung parts of the world. Finance teams will be getting tweets on billing and finance issues directly from the socialsphere rather than from the traditional channels. Recruiters are clearly already using Social Networks like LinkedIn as their first source of candidates. HR is checking the background of those new hires on Social Networks looking to see what this new hire is all about. IT was already on the scene with Web 2.0 technologies when Social Media hit. And Legal has been working and reworking policies on Social to adapt to the changes. And finally, Learning and Development teams will be harnessing social tools internally to train and enable everyone from new hires to sales teams and beyond.

If you think Social Media is just for marketing – think again. Social is impacting and beginning its reinvention of every area within your company. The question is - are you helping do your share to educate them?

Off Topic ... Tribute to Disabled Sailors

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 07:01:36 PDT

2 weeks ago my sons and I had the opportunity to assist at the U.S. Disabled Championship regatta which was being held right here in Greenwich CT. What we thought would be just a weekend filled with helping sailors get into and out of their boats quickly became much more. What we saw not only impressed us but will leave a lasting impression on us for years to come.

Many of the sailors were paraplegic and quadriplegic which makes sailing all the more challenging. They came with special seats that were secured to the boat but then they need to be strapped into them, in some cases bundled up with plastic bags around their feet to keep them dry and parka like suits to keep them warm. The point being how would they know if they were wet or cold? In some cases we had to tape their hands directly to the tiller with duct tape so they could use their shoulder to operate the tiller!

But what really struck us even more was the mix of blind sailors on the water. Picture yourself driving a car in a race with a blindfold on and only a person next to you to tell you where to go! Above you see Matt Chao sailing downwind and reading the wind on his face as he steers the boat. We saw Matt execute moves at the start of a race and at mark roundings that even accomplished sailors rarely attempt.

Our hats are off to all of these brave men and women who participated in this regatta and even those that didn't qualify for it. You are welcome on my boat any day so until then - Press on Regardless!

For details on the actual race you can read my blog posts on U.S. Sailing
Photo credit: Peter Braune

Seven Ways To Make Money On Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:41:25 PDT

While Facebook has recently surpassed 300 Million members, marketers are just starting to embrace the social network as a place to do business.

For savvy Facebook marketers, there are tremendous untapped opportunities to making money. From Marketplace sales to application entrepreneurs to direct marketers, Facebook is opening up entirely new business channels for customer interaction. If you're in the know about Facebook, check out these money-making ways and chart your course to Facebook riches.

Seven Ways To Make Money On Facebook

View more presentations from Paul Dunay.

From the authors of Facebook Marketing for Dummies comes another practical eBook with helpful tips and recommendations on how to market your business on Facebook.

You can also check out our other eBooks, including:

The 1-9-90 rule won't work for Internal Collaboration

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:19:31 PDT

Ok, so you decide to implement an internal microblogging platform like Yammer or Socialcast, or even an internal Wiki platform like SocialText or Confluence.

You go crazy making your business case based on the idea that people will be so much more productive. You sweat the long nights and the hard work that it takes to get your new platform stood up within your organization so that everyone can begin to collaborate. Productivity gains are now at everyone’s fingertips …

So you begin recruiting your internal employees, getting them to join, asking them to get others to join, and placing reminders to join in the company newsletter – you whole organization is a buzz with the news. You are a hero.

But where is the productivity?

Jacob Nielsen coined a theory called the 1-9-90 theory that says out of every hundred people who join a community or network – 1% actively contribute – 9% contribute from time to time – and 90% are lurkers.

It’s almost like answering 1 out of every 100 emails!

The cycle of this theory has to be broken when it comes to internal collaboration sites. You can’t put out a request for help from an internal team and everyone misses the tweet or posting.

I think as Social Media marketers we have to get better at training. And setting the expectation that if you join you are expected to contribute. Maybe even go so far as making it a requirement in your yearly performance review. Not just a ‘check the box’ type of – did you contribute back to the community – but if you didn’t contribute tangibly back to the community – it may impact your bonus potential!

This is the type of approach it will take to really flip that theory on its head.

Social Product Innovation: 2 Ways

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:10:55 PDT

There are 2 ways in which you can use social media to innovate when it comes to developing new products.

1) Product led innovations – here companies like Dell and Salesforce have led the charge in using tools to help them prioritize new product features with IdeaStorm and IdeaExchange (respectfully). These are great for engaging your user base and getting them exactly what they request on a schedule that they can see and influence.

But that’s only going to get you so far.

The reason for this is they are commenting on an existing product and helping to evolve the product. But this doesn’t protect Dell or SalesForce from someone leapfrogging them. Sure it would be hard but look at the iPod. MP3 players were around for a while before the iPod came out and cleaned their clocks.

Therefore I think the second type of innovation you can get from Social Media is Problem led innovation.

2) Problem led innovations – this is where companies like Dell or Salesforce gets outside of their 4 virtual walls and listen to customers in other virtual places for new product ideas. Things they haven’t thought of yet. Then they engage with the users and vow to help bring that product to market. Perhaps even recruit them to become part of a virtual product development team.

Social Media holds a lot of promise for companies both small and large especially when it comes to Product innovation. We have yet to see the full impact of all of this inter-connectedness. But it will take someone who truly studies and understands the landscape to navigate the waters to successfully find leapfrog opportunities.

Challenges in Everyone in Your Company being Social

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:32:05 PDT

In the last post called Just 4 People doing Social Media? we discussed how social media like email will eventually be in the hands of everyone in your organization. I even put a date on it Jan 1 2012.

But there are challenges to this happening that were not apparent when email rolled out across the enterprise.

The issue is Brand “voice”.

Sure some people are funnier than other people when it comes to witty emails. Some people like to write tombs and some are masters of the one-liners (like myself).

But in Social Media that approach wont work. You cant have some people being long Tweeters – it just wont work – and you cant have some people being fast and pithy. I think it presents a real challenge for a brand. And you run the risk of dilution of the brand.

Now factor in your Contact Center …

They can’t go from super nice phone personas, then whitty Twitter/Facebook personas and then over to long detailed email personas. That would be a very hard thing to do and few people are qualified to do that. And most likely those few would be reserved for high profile escalations of customer service.

I think organizations are going to need a lot of training on successful Social Media situations that resulted in a very positive experience for the brand. Some of this training will be generic to all companies and some will have to be very specific to each company.

The reason being is that each Social Media site has its own “norms” of behaviors that go with them. Learning them are key to success in each of them. So a Social Media content repository (ok that sounds weird) perhaps a Social Media Knowledge Management system (most likely a Wiki) will need to be in place so people can study what has happened, get up to speed fast and go out and get Social!

Just 4 People doing Social Media?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:33:09 PDT

Imagine it is New Years Eve 2011, just 2 short years from now and you are having a conversation with a buddy from work and you are remembering the days when your firm only had 4 people actively engaged in Social Media. Its now 2011 and everyone in your company has access to and the ability to jump and engage in Social Media.

I liken this to the early days of email, when only a few people in the company had access to email. “Not everyone needs it” I remember hearing! But now that statement seems so “out of touch” it’s comical!

24 months from now will your company seem comical? Will you have rolled out, recruited and trained everyone on how to use and engage with Social Media?

Will your Contact Center be able to handle the flow of inquires coming in from not just the phone and email, but from Twitter, Facebook, Forums, Blogs, Comments, and other social networks yet to be invented?

If you are one of the lucky 4 right now – you job is not only to listen, share and engage on Social Media – its also to educate the folks around you in your organization and get them up to speed on what you are doing and how they can get engaged as well.

Social Media won’t burn out and go away; there are too many effective uses and adoptions of Social Media into the hands of your customers to stop. So it’s not a question of if you need to roll out Social Media even wider – it’s a question of when are you going to roll it out wider!

Using Social Media to Deepen Customer Relations

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:02:39 PDT

An obvious win for companies looking to jump into Social Media is in the Customer Support area. As more and more customers voice their opinions online, the choice is not if you should be responding using Social Media, but when are you going to start responding!

I recently saw figures from Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research that showed 92% of BtoB Technology buyers consider themselves engaging in some form of Social Media. If that isn’t a wake up call for Technology Companies, I don’t know what is!

So with numbers like that ensuring that your buyers are out there, then building a business case around Social Media to provide customer support becomes a lot easier. But what isn’t as widely understood is the “soft” benefits of reaching out to a customer in the virtual location and in the manner which the customer desires: it makes them feel empowered that the brand is listening, that the brand understands and cares about their preferences enough to interact with them the way in which they desire.

Today’s customer support through Contact Centers typically feels anonymous. When was the last time you had a truly personal interaction with a Contact Center employee? This is the reason that customers feel a lack of intimacy with the Contact Center.

So why wouldn't you take every opportunity for your brand to build better and deeper relations with every customer you can using Social Media for Customer Support?

Twitter does not have an Out of Office feature

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:59:43 PDT

So at a recent Social Media event we got to talking about the Motrin social media scandal. One of the threads that jumped out at me was the part about the mommies who responded happen to really speak out late on a Friday night. And by Sunday, Motrin has responded and removed the ads that started the whole issue – just 2 days later.

This scenario and others just like it are proving that social media never sleeps and therefore the Social Media team has to be ready to respond 24/7/365.

Some may feel like the pendulum has swung too far in instances like these – I agree – but I also feel its not coming back. And I am ok with that. I think as Social Media marketers we are doing our brands a huge service by humanizing them and caring enough to show it in our response times.

I have been asked – what is a reasonable response time on Twitter or Blog comment. And I feel a few hours is probably right. Since in Twitter or Tweetdeck (or whatever tool you are using to monitor) there are built in delay times. So real time (or near real time) is out of the question (at least for now). Given that you may be busy putting your kids to bed when something like the Motrin issue hit – I have to think 3 hours is probably a good target.

The issue quickly becomes – what happens if it is a really tough issue – that can’t be triaged with just a single Tweet. Where you need to assemble a team as Motrin did. Well I guess there is no Weekend in Social Media because Social Media never takes a Vacation!

Is Real Time Marketing in your future?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:05:21 PDT

In fact I would argue it is here today.

Take a look at one of my last post on Hey Marketer - When was the last time you talked with a customer??

And then ask yourself – how long did some of those interactions take. For Example - We resolved the issue for the person below in 15 minutes! When is the last time you baked up a marketing plan, executed it, got the reaction and closed the whole thing off in 15 minutes!

I always felt marketing needed serious lead time to ramp up on any major strategic shift.

But over the last few years (including last year’s recession marketing) we didn’t have months to plan. My old boss used to say to me “none of our Financial Services customers are waiting to fix their mortgage exposure issues – they are diving in right now and we can’t wait 45 days to put on a brilliant webinar on How to Solve Today’s Mortgage Crisis – we need to do it right now!” Followed by “if you had a leak in your basement would you wait 45 days for a consultant to put on a webinar on How to fix your leaky basement??” (and that one always killed me when he said that!)

But ask your media partners if they can turn on a dime and get you a webinar in a week – answer NO. It takes months to plan and execute.

I would argue we are moving into an environment where we don’t have months to plan and execute or even days to plan and execute – we are moving to Real Time Marketing. Where we see something on the Socialsphere and we plan and react to it in seconds. All brought on by things like monitoring your brand on Forums, Blogs, Comments, Twitter, and Social Networks.

Unfortunately I think the world has changed forever - so you better get used to the new world of Marketing – Real Time Marketing!

Five Ways Facebook Can Get You Fired!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:40:22 PDT

Can your social media activities cost you your job? You bet they can, and it’s my mission to show you how to avoid that fate!

You are about to see a number of real-life case studies about Facebook. These people are not actors or anything I dreamed up – they are real people whose lives changed based on a few bad keystrokes and misaligned priorities.

So sit back, relax and enjoy another installment of the ways in which social networking can change your life ...

Five Ways Facebook Can Get You Fired

View more presentations from Paul Dunay.

Also don't forget to check out my last eBook on the 7 Ways that Facebook can Change your Life or pre-order Facebook Marketing for Dummies (wiley) due out soon!

Hey Marketer - When was the last time you talked with a customer??

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:22:52 PDT

It’s an odd dynamic I see in play today - in today’s ever connected environment marketers tell me they feel even more removed from direct customer interaction.

As a former sales person, I used to schedule “ride-along” time with my sales team just to get out on sales calls and hear how we position ourselves in front of the customer, how that message lands on the customer and more importantly what the customer is saying in reaction to how we are positioned.

Today I would argue that is still important (and few marketers actually do it) but with the tools we have at our disposal you don’t even need to get out of the office to talk with customer. In fact, I talk to customers EVERYDAY, even several times a day. How? With Twitter!!

Every week my virtual social media team and I are listening to 1000 – 2500 mentions of Avaya plus a bunch of “Conversations” we are tracking (see Forget Audience Segmentation – Segment by Conversation!)

We are engaging with customers and solving their issues in record time providing excellent service to them around issues such as: Customer Support, End of Life product, Highly Technical questions, Finance and Billing questions, and Partner Relations. In fact we even won our first engagement over Twitter – so watch out DellOutlet we are gaining on you fast!

Our goal as a Social Media Marketing team is to engage in more conversations this week than we did last week and have better relations as every week goes by! With today’s tools there is no excuse for not engaging with customer in real time – what’s stopping you?

The photo in this post is from my sponsor Shutterstock – to learn more go to http://www.shutterstock.com

Cost per Advocate - the new CPA Model!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:33:24 PDT

In my last blog post we discussed How Social Commerce will lead to Advocacy Based Marketing (ABM) because of things like Facebook Connect. And if we start to move to Advocacy Based Marketing (ABM) then perhaps a new measurement – the Cost per Advocate model will need to be born.

Cost per Acquisition (the old CPA) has been around since the dawn of the internet. Those unwilling marketers like me who were not willing to pay the Internet bubble prices for CPM (cost per thousand) impression based model demanded a more accountable model from our media partners and CPA (cost per acquisition) was born.

Now with the new era of Social Commerce about to dawn then perhaps advertisers will want to BUY targeted ads based on social profile of an individual. The stronger the profile of an individual the higher the price it will be to reach them. Like keywords – perhaps there is a bidding process for these individuals that rank highly on influence for a particular topic.

With something like Facebook Ads you can already target your message based on real data, real tastes, stated likes and desires so perhaps the next iteration of Facebook ads will have a way to segment based on influence – if you have 5, 50, 500 or the max 5000 friends – why should all of those profiles cost the same? All Facebook needs to do is add a feature that targets 500 friends or more and charges you a premium price!

One thing is for sure – we have a long way to go when it comes to social media marketing and this is just another frontier that we have yet to discover.

The photo in this post is from my sponsor Shutterstock – to learn more go to http://www.shutterstock.com

How Social Commerce leads to Advocacy Based Marketing (ABM)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 04:41:44 PDT

Every company today is headed for a Brave New World of eCommerce – and that is the world of Social Commerce. Almost a year ago, July 23rd 2008, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook Connect, which gives any website the power of a social network like Facebook right there on its own website.

So what you say?

Facebook Connect provides 4 very important features:

1) Trusted Authentication – meaning it uses your Facebook account to authenticate your profile
2) Real Identity – meaning it taps into your real identity information from anywhere on the web
3) Access to your Friends – meaning it allows you to stay connected to your friends anywhere Facebook Connect is offered
4) Dynamic Privacy – meaning your privacy settings travel with you to external sites using Facebook connect

What this all means is that as eCommerce sites start to implement Facebook Connect and some already are – you will be able to access your profile and create conversations with your friends around an individual purchase!

Example – Lets say you would like to buy the new iPhone 3Gs – you look the Apple Store and see they have implemented Facebook Connect (again this is just an example). You see several of your friends are online and open up a chat with your buddy Jim who always has the newest Apple device and ask him if the new 3Gs is for you. He unequivocally says yes and you decide to make the purchase.

This scenario illustrated the power of a new era of what we will call Advocacy Based Marketing (ABM). If a brand can see and understand that you are a strong positive supporter of the brand and that you are making referrals about the product – they should be reaching out and engaging with you (Jim in the above example). Perhaps they will even offer you and your followers/friends (Twitter/Facebook) a special discount or a peak at the next version before the launch to get the viral buzz going.

All of this will lead to a new era of digital commerce in the next 24 months – Are you ready?

Time to Replace your Online News Room with Facebook!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 06:36:41 PDT

Back in October of 2007 at a MarketingProfs conference I remember listening to a panel on how someone used a blog as their online news room.

The panel was run by David Armano and featured Todd Andrilik the director of marketing and PR, for Leopardo Construction, who was using WordPress as a online news room.

It was one of those marketing ideas that I walked away from it thinking – Damn I wish I thought of that! (shout out to Andy Sernovitz who runs a blog by that name - http://www.damniwish.com/).

Many services started to pop up after that to create and host a social media news room for companies. But recently after writing Facebook Marketing for Dummies (due out in September by Wiley) it occurred to me why would I ever pay for that if I can create the same thing on Facebook for FREE!

Think about it. You can set up a Facebook Page for your business, use the Notes feature to upload all your press releases from your site automatically from your RSS feed (see chapter 5 of Facebook Marketing for Dummies), add a bookmarking service like Del.icio.us as an application or widget, add photos or import photos using the Flickr application and add Videos or import them via the YouTube application. And BINGO you have the same thing just using your existing social media presences and wiring them together and it’s free!

But best of all you take your news room from being an island on your own website or worse hosted on someone else’s website like on WordPress and move it to a place like Facebook where millions of people can interact, comment and discuss the news if they chose to do so.

Forget Audience Segmentation – Segment by Conversation!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Dunay) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:41:54 PDT

Back in December of 2007 Forrester published a method for creating a Social Media Strategy called the POST Method. It was revolutionary at the time because as most who marketers were beginning to experiment with Social Media fell into the trap of implementing the latest “shinny object” which naturally over-focused them on the technology rather than finding the right audience (or P for People), identifying your objectives (O), creating a strategy to reach them (S) and then finding what technology would work best (T).

But I would argue having worked on several social media strategies now that this approach no longer holds.

The problem is the (P) in the POST method.

I dawned on me when the CMO of Avaya asked me to show her how we would reach certain audiences with our Social Media efforts like Prospects and Business Partners etc. it was hard to find a “pure” grouping of these out on the Socialsphere. What you typically find is a “Conversation” and in that conversation you have a few prospects, maybe an existing customer, a business partner, a few employees and even a competitor or two.

The goal of your Social Media strategy is not to find the P for People it’s to find the C for Conversations!

If you can effectively listen and monitor to find the conversations where the people are talking about topics you want to participate in then you are 90% of the way to a successful social media strategy. And if you play your cards right to generating leads with your Social Media strategy.

But that would infer that the POST Method should really be the COST Method for creating a Social Media strategy and that just doesn’t sound very good!