Notes from the Hive - Social Networking

Generating Leads Through Linkedin

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:40:56 -0700

What I find interesting is just how under estimated Linkedin is. The more popular Facebook, Twitter, Youtube get all the hype and attention while this gold mine quietly sits and grows and grows. My guess is that because it is a professional networking site it doesn’t have the universal sex appeal of the others, but a savvy sales and marketing executive knows – or should know the power of Linkedin.

Generating more business is everyone’s job at a company no matter what your position. Everyone should not only be a brand ambassador but should also be a lead magnet. Linkedin is primo for the B2B market and even for B2C companies. When one conjures thoughts of vendors, strategic alliances, investors, allies, partners, employees, consultants and prospects, START with Linkedin.

Market research reveals that it is the first place HR checks when either looking for or vetting a candidate. Statistics reveal that the education and earning levels of members is one of the highest of all the social media properties, with the exception maybe of practice specific sites for lawyers, accountants and the like. Becoming successful is not a result of hard work and smarts alone, it often boils down to ‘not what you know, it is who you know’ and Linkedin will help you get those valuable connections.

So what can Linkedin do for you and how can you start generating leads?

Before I venture into some of the lead generating activity suggestions, please spend some time on your profile and settings. Make sure that your profile is complete, that you are incorporating keywords in your titles and descriptions, and above all, make sure that you describe yourself in a way that clearly delivers the value in knowing you!

1. Grow your network: Linkedin has tools that connect directly with Outlook and has the ability to search other email accounts to see who you know already on Linkedin. If you don’t connect your email program, at least perform a monthly check for new contacts in your database for who is on Linkedin.
Tip: Every time you go to an event carry a small envelope with the date and name of the event. Place all the cards you collect into that envelope and when you get back to your office start reaching out to those people to connect and use a personalized message such as ‘it was great meeting you yesterday at the EVENT, I would love to stay in touch and see how we might be of service to one another.”

2. Updates: there is a feature much like Twitter and Facebook that allows you to post an update that will show up on your profile and in network updates to your connections. Use it wisely.

3. Introductions: Give them, ask for them. The idea of 6 degrees of separation is made apparent on Linkedin. If there is a contact at a particular company you seek, by searching on Linkedin you will discover who you already know that knows who you want to know. Introductions make a cold call a warm call and a faster track to closing a sale.

4. Get Visible: Linkedin provides updates to members you are connected with. Some people adjust their updates to daily, some weekly but the point is that delivered to your connection’s inbox are updates and you should find ways to have your name show up in those updates. Read on for some suggestions on how to accomplish this.

5. Referrals: say thanks to someone – a vendor, partner, even a customer – for a job well done or just acknowledging some special talent or skill that had a positive impact. Chances are they will reciprocate. And don’t be shy about asking customers to write a recommendation but be careful to ask only those who have actually worked with you and can speak to your professional brilliance.

6. Groups: join groups that are relevant to your business and interests and that you can contribute to meaningfully. Groups where your prospects participate are a good place to start. Much like real life, hanging out with the right people is a solid step toward successful connections.

7. Books: Linkedin provides the opportunity to mention what you are reading or have read with a short blurb regarding the book. I could write volumes on why this is a pivotal tool but for now just let me say that sharing this information is a really good idea.

8. Events: the events feature on Linkedin lets you browse what is happening and in some cases, people will actually make notation that they are attending. You might just find that the person you are trying to meet will be at an event in your area.

9. Slideshare: has expanded to not just power point decks but now includes video and other documents. This is a great way to show off some of that industry specific knowledge that no one knows you have.

10. Blogs: Linkedin can automatically pull in your blog posts. If you would like to grow your reader base, or just keep your contacts in the know with the great material you are providing through your blog, don’t forget to activate this feature.

11. Twitter: ugh. Yes, Linkedin will allow you to stream your tweets into your profile. I say ugh because I caution you as this can become annoying. I am not a fan of this feature as I find it clutters the page as most tweets are inane at best and often times out of context and offer no real value. Each person is different and it might work for you but I would exercise caution here.

12. Saved Search: if you want to keep tabs on a company you are interested in, conduct a search on that company and save it so that any changes with the people in that company will be in your updates. Are they letting more people go then hiring? Did someone get a promotion? Did they hire someone you know?

The take away: Linkedin is a professional networking platform where the information is rich and powerful and the opportunity to break barriers of entry exists. A lot of searches are done on Linkedin and this is another opportunity to get found by the people you want to find you. Link your way to success!

It’s Sales and Marketing

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:01:29 -0700

I recently had some discussions with a local association director and then a SEO specialist on the topic of Social Media. No wonder as I am a rather passionate evangelist in case you hadn’t noticed. Anyway, what I found interesting is the language surrounding how Social Media is defined and classified.

Social Media is Technology. Well my view on that is Social Media is NOT technology, it is Sales and Marketing. Technology might be behind the development and deployment of Social Media but it is in itself not technology. Actually, in my humble opinion it has humanized technology. The amazing technology behind these social sites is really transparent. There is no barrier to entry. No financial investment is needed if you have a computer and Internet access and to use these sites, maybe not well but use them nonetheless, no training or special education is required.

As a personal tool, these sites are wonderful for keeping us in touch with one another as well as reconnecting with those one has fallen out of touch with over the years. Our lives are too hectic, fast paced, full of demands, delights and challenges for taking time to leisurely chat on the phone or make visits.

As a business tool, the use of these sites allow us to be more prepared with information and data, make connections beyond our physical reach and maintain contact in our pressure cooker environments. Social Media actually puts our sales and marketing efforts on steroids and what company doesn’t need that?

Referring to Social Media as a technology creates a mental barrier for many executives to buy into the use of Social Media. I think it also creates the risk of assigning the task to the wrong department. Social Media should include the IT departments but it is by no means an IT task. Maybe some of these executives and entrepreneurs are technophobes and feel that they would lose control or maybe they feel it opens the door to too many risks. Either way, social media is on the fast track to the norm and as it evolves those who have not staked out their territory stand to be shut out all together before too long. The warning that if you aren’t engaged now you won’t exist later has a lot of merit.

The second challenge is the language of SEO, SEM and SMM. Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing. I believe here again that the acronyms have been so confusing that this creates another barrier. SEO has had one of the biggest shifts since its inception. With local and real time search taking front and center as the key factors in search rankings, social media is now a primary driver for search engines to decide which sites come first. SEM is advertising on the Internet such as PPC (pay per click) and banner ads, while SEO and SMM are just plain and simple Sales and Marketing tools.

My recommendation is to set aside what ever misconceptions or views you might have regarding Social Media and if you are not committed to investing the time and talent into this channel for generating sales, then prepare yourselves for extinction. Ouch, harsh words? Yes but then reality is usually harsher than the hope of better times or the good old days.

Care to comment?

Staggering Social Media Statistics

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Mon, 10 May 2010 06:35:04 -0700

This is really more a share than a blog. Just last week the updated video for social media statistics was released - you may remember the one from last year - a great video that went viral pretty quickly. So I am doing my part and sharing this with you. I recommend you watch the video but in case you need the notes, below are the statistics that they share.

Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh) May 5, 2010
By Erik Qualman

It’s amazing how fast the world of social media moves! As many of the statistics from the original Social Media video have changed, I took a moment to refresh the video with a few new statistics and graphics.

1. Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30-years-old
2. 96% of them have joined a social network
3. Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.
4. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
5. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
6. Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…
7. Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year
8. iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
9. We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it.”
10. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest ahead of the United States and only behind China and India
11. Yet, QQ and Renren dominate China
12. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
13. 80% of companies use social media for recruitment; % of these using LinkedIn 95%
14. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
15. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the populations of Ireland, Norway, or Panama. Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.
16. 50% of the mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
17. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé – some universities have stopped distributing e-mail accounts
18. Instead they are distributing: eReaders + iPads + Tablets
19. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
20. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
21. While you watch this 100+ hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube
22. Wikipedia has over 15 million articles…studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
23. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
24. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
25. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
26. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
27. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
28. Do you like what they are saying about your brand? You better.
29. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
30. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
31. Only 14% trust advertisements
32. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
33. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
34. Kindle eBooks Outsold Paper Books on Christmas
35. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation
36. 60 millions status updates happen on Facebook daily
37. We no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
38. We will non longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media
39. Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate
40. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like Mad Men Listening first, selling second
41. The ROI of social media is that your business will still exist in 5 years
42. Bonus: comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network

What the Tweet?

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 05:38:31 -0700

Twitter has been controversial since it launched. I continue to hear people comment:
It takes up too much time for too little results.
It is just meaningless drivel from self-absorbed people.
* It is a spam machine.

And I hear more and more reasons why not to invest time or effort into Twitter.

Many have jumped in and found these assessments to be true for them and bailed out or simply just started to neglect their Twitter account. I say ‘for them’ because it may well be that they don’t understand the tool and how to best leverage Twitter.

Others haven’t jumped in at all and hold firm to the belief that it is a passing fad.

And for those who do understand some of the techniques to using Twitter and are actually accomplishing their goals and monetizing their efforts – I applaud you.

April 14-15, at the Chirp Conference – The Official Twitter Developers Conference held in San Francisco, Twitter released a lot of statistics, something that they don’t often or freely do. I wasn’t there but have been reading up on the releases and bloggers who did attend. Please take note of the statistics below that I have copied over from Jeff Bula’s blog

1. Twitter has 105,779,710 registered users (was 8 million 12 months ago – 1300% growth)
2. 300,000 new users sign up per day
3. Approximately 60% of them are coming from outside the U.S
4. Twitter receives 180 million unique visitors per month
5. 75% of Twitter traffic comes from third-party applications
6. 60% of all tweets come from third-party apps
7. Since the new Blackberry application was launched, it has accounted for 7 to 8% of new sign ups
8. There are 600 million search queries on Twitter per day
9. There are over 100,000 Twitter applications
10. Twitter gets 3 billion requests a day through its API
11. 37% of active Twitter users use their phone to tweet

And so you were waiting for -- what?

If you haven’t gotten any success so far, go get a cup of coffee or bottle of water, sit for a few minutes and read some of the back posts here. Several posts are focused on helping you get started or make the most of your efforts. The key to success in social media is not how powerful your marketing message is but how social you are. Yeah, not exactly what they taught you in sales and marketing boot camp.

Oh, and while we are on the topic of social media, Reuters reported on April 21, 2010:
“Since its creation in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, Facebook has emerged as one of the Internet's most popular destinations and is increasingly challenging established Web powerhouses like Yahoo Inc and Google Inc.

Facebook is the fourth-most visited site in the United States, and displaced Google in January to become the top U.S. site by total number of Web pages viewed.”

The other topic trending heavily on internet blogs, tweets and news is the focus away from the obsession of page ranking and is moving more toward traffic to your web site driven through social media. Your page rank will improve with the increase of social media activity and traffic results to your website. Stay focused on the goal, how it is achieved is different for each company and the tools and techniques are changing rapidly. So the point is that what ever you were doing may not be what you need to be doing now.

Social Media Strategy: Publish or Perish

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 11:12:15 -0700

One of the biggest challenge companies face today in deploying an effective Social Media strategy is having a strategy at all. Companies are usually prepared to talk about the benefits of their company, services or products but they aren’t necessarily comfortable with the concept of sharing and being open.
This barrier often leaves entrepreneurs and corporate managers at a loss as to how to successfully deploy Social Media or worse, they jump in and shoot themselves in the foot before they even really get started.

Jeremiah Owyang from Web Strategy recommends “Companies should have a ‘Customer Strategy’ not a ‘Twitter or Facebook Strategy’. To start, first understand your customers social behaviors…”
Companies may want to jump into the main stream to be seen at the popular spots like Facebook and Twitter and so they set off with some standard marketing blurbs and even links to some testimonials and product or service demos and descriptions on their website. This is where the trouble begins.

The research phase is skipped because the value may not be understood. Research is the first place to start! Without digging in you risk wasting time and effort and possibly even expense in a network that might not be ripe for your business model. This isn’t to say that someday it might not be but maybe this isn’t where you focus today. Another risk is that you are having the wrong conversation with the right people. What that means is that if you are posting irrelevant or self serving content you risk turning these people away.

An example is that when someone follows me on Twitter, I take a look at their profile and if their stream is nothing more than marketing tweets I don’t follow them back. I don’t think that I differ much in this practice among serious Tweeters. I choose to not have my twitter stream filled with someone else’s sales pitches. The gold mine on Twitter comes when you engage in conversations. Like any relationship it takes time.

Without doing the research you won’t know how to reach the people you desire. ‘Build it and they will come’ is not the way it works typically. You should spend some time first discovering the who, the what, the where, the when and the why. When you have the data from those questions then you can begin to create a strategy for the type of content to share and where best to share it.

A word of advice is to create a strategy that has nothing to do with selling! Social media should be about building a network and gaining exposure. Your strategy should comprise several components:
1. Your keywords and phrases
2. Your target audience
3. Where your audience is engaging (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.)
4. The Gist: what I mean by this is what is the topic or general area of content that is most likely to attract and engage this audience
5. Arsenal of resources for where are you going to find new and interesting content to share
6. Your Gist: just like No. 4 but things that you are going to create such as blogs, white papers, surveys, videos, free ebooks or guides.

With the new emphasis of Google’s real time search, Twitter seems to be the perfect platform but there is a caveat. Google is selective and they take quality of the tweeter and the tweet into account. Therefore just getting a Twitter account and blasting away sales pitches probably won’t have any impact on your search engine optimization efforts. However, if you take the time to build up a strong following, get on other Tweeter’s lists, RT often and get retweeted as a result, Google will take notice.

Once you start, Retweet the posts from those whose attention you seek – they will appreciate those gestures. Retweet posts that you find interesting or relevant to your area of expertise or that your followers might find interesting.

Answer someone’s question on Twitter – if you aren’t sure you can test out @ianswr to see if there are any questions you would like to answer. Even better – ask a question. Not a question that is a typical sales opener but a genuine question that either gives you the pulse on what is going on out in the world or can offer assistance or direction that you seek.

Another strategy (which takes some research time) is finding customers of yours or even of your competitor’s that are already on line and watch and listen to what they talk about. Join in the conversation or address any issues or concerns. The most important thing is that you sound interested in them and willing to be helpful. Not trying to make a sale.

I focused mostly on Twitter in this post because it is the most accessible of all the social sites out there. There are fewer barriers and with over 100 million registered users it is a great big sea of opportunity. The suggestions here are relevant to any social network although each works differently and has different best practices associated, this should give you an idea of what you might want to think about before you jump in to the mix.

I would love to hear about some of the strategies you’ve employed and how they have worked or not. And if you have something to add to this post, by all means, jump right in!

Spring Cleaning on Facebook

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:35:14 -0700

I admit that I have not attended to my Facebook business fan page and promise to start getting more involved soon. In the meantime my personal page was getting eaten alive with mafia wars and farmers from Farmville and I found it most annoying.

I am glad that folks have hobbies and like playing on line games I just don’t want the updates on my wall with big images and things that I don’t find relevant and doubt most of my friends do. Maybe I sound cranky, maybe I am sharing a sentiment that rings true with you as well.

I did not want to block my friends and I am interested in staying in touch but wanted to filter out the applications that clutter a wall with ‘stuff’. So I blocked those applications from showing up on my wall while still leaving my friends streams and posts visible otherwise.

If you want to do the same thing here is how you do that.

When a post shows up on your wall with an application you would rather never see again, right click on the application name that appears in small print at the bottom of the post and select OPEN IN NEW TAB. You can also just go to the application fan page.

Once you are on the application fan page you will notice some options on the left under the image. One of those options (thankfully) is BLOCK THIS APPLICATION. Select that and then go back to your own wall and guess what – a nice, clean, stream of genuine sharing among friends.

If you have other tips for Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or other sites, please share them with us.
Also Invite you to join us on Facebook

HOW OFTEN AND WHAT SHOULD I POST ON TWITTER & FACEBOOK?

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:14:40 -0700

I just returned from a two-hour workshop I conducted on social media marketing. After everyone asked their questions, thanked me and went on their merry way, a marketing manager came to me and posed the question “so how often should I post on Twitter and Facebook?”

It is seemingly a simple enough question, however the truth is that is that after looking at their accounts they didn’t have any followers so the answer is “it doesn’t matter, no one is listening”.

I find that this happens more often than not when a company realizes the value of Social Media Marketing as a factor in SEO (search engine optimization) and a lead generating opportunity so they decide to jump in. KUDOS for that, however the first thing that should be done – even before a strategy is developed is to LOOK, LISTEN and LEARN.

Social Media will not be nice to you if you treat it like a sales and marketing platform. Therefore what I advised was that for the first 30 days post nothing! That’s right, post nothing.

Spend the 30 days retweeting, commenting, replying, suggesting and sharing. Also start finding people to follow or fan and see what is going on and only jump in if you have something of value to share or a complement to give. The time invested is to build an audience of friends, followers and fans. Understand what they are interested in and value and how to engage them. Once you have observed, studied, and even tested the waters and your audience starts to build then you can develop a strategy.

If you don’t know who you are ‘talking’ to then you can’t possibly know what to ‘talk about’ or how often they are going to pay attention. If all you are doing is posting things about your company or links to your site then when someone goes to check you out to determine if they are interested in following you will look at your stream of marketing chatter and discard you as a spammer or having nothing of value to offer them.

I will always encourage clients to jump in but to avoid death by drowning. Tread lightly until you understand the audience and what gets and holds their attention. Then you can craft a strategy to build up awareness of your company’s and your special talents and knowledge and you will have an audience that is listening.

Social Media: Where Do I Start?

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:46:46 -0700

You may be one of the millions who have NOT started engaging in social media as a customer or sales outreach but are still thinking about it. Or not.

Social media is a fact of business life today. Chances are some of your employees are, your competitors, customers and prospects and so you should at least become familiar with the tools that will give you an understanding and first alert system for when there is a problem or an opportunity.

A problem might look like a competitor beating you to the opportunity, a customer complaining about your company or an employee behaving badly or sharing proprietary information. An opportunity might look like someone sharing a problem that you can solve or a competitor failing to deliver and a good opportunity for you to present your services or products.

Lets start with corporate policy. If you have employees then you can be sure that some have a facebook, myspace or twitter account and possibly their own blogs. Policy is not just for what is said and done on a company site but also can cover what is said and posted on personal sites – at least as it relates to your business.

Employees should have clear guidelines that if they are involved in social media what is acceptable and what would get them fired. Examples might be, no mentioning of our customers or any company business at all. Maybe you want to narrow the focus to no names, no discussions of financial matters, processes or in-development work and no boss or co-worker bashing.

If you have an HR Department, set up monitoring of staff on-line activity – and should certainly do this as a precursor to hiring anyone new. If you don’t have in-house staff, this is an easily outsourced process.
Other suggestions might be geared toward etiquette such as not engaging in flaming (arguments), and suggestions that if you wouldn’t say it to your boss or your mother than chances are you shouldn’t say it on line either. These guidelines and best practices can be the same for online branded site activity as well.

A good example of a corporate policy is Dell's. I would also recommend reading an article in Forbes on the topic.

The next place to start is conducting a baseline audit. This is research to help you understand the current environment and understand how to best relate to your audience – especially understanding where your audience is and how they are engaging on social media sites. You could also discover who the loudest voices are and who carries the most weight. These could be excellent targets to romance as they have the larger circles of influence that can carry your message all the further.

Getting involved in social media should be a strategic move with measurable results. Just jumping in and hoping for the best could leave you either disappointed with your ROI or worse, turn away what could have been a viable prospect. Or worse yet – both disappointed and shut out.

More Face time with Facebook

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:53:01 -0700

Let’s face it, when it comes to marketing don’t we want to be where the action is? If we want exposure then it only follows that we go where the eyeballs are. Given the finicky and fast changing trends today on the internet it pays to keep an eye on where the traffic is flowing.

Think back only a few short years ago. Twitter was not a well known property and yet seemingly overnight it became the hottest topic on everyone’s mind and the rush to join created a landslide of followers. Although Twitter has remained a hot property for connecting, research, search and creating awareness, many have become disillusioned with the volume of noise and the crowding of the space making it harder to sort the spamming riff raff from genuine folks to connect with. Twitter is still a valid arena but the attention and explosive growth now turns to Facebook.

Comscore recently released the December 2009 metrics. Comscore is best known as the industry barometer for the digital world and source of digital marketing intelligence. According to Comscore, Facebook more than doubled its U.S. audience from 54.5 million visitors in December 2008 to 111.9 million visitors in December 2009. It went from being the #11 ranked property to the #4 ranked property. It now accounts for 7% of all time spent online in the U.S. Read this report in its entirety.

Like Facebook or not, the appeal is that you have more control over your conversations and with who you connect on line. You are not limited to 140 characters and you can upload videos, pictures, have lists to manage personal and business separately and the opportunity to create group and fan pages to be a more interactive extension of your website. Facebook is not without flaws but it is growing in popularity. One aspect that I enjoy is having a closer look at how and with whom my friends are connecting and what they are sharing. With LinkedIn you can see who is connected to whom but you can’t really see how they are interacting. Twitter and LinkedIn lack the intimacy that Facebook affords.

Growing a friend following and a fan base may take a bit more time with Facebook, but given the trend it would only make sense that this is a marketing focus that you might want to pay attention to. Less formal than LinkedIn, your corporate culture and personality have an opportunity to take root and the opportunity to be more creative and experimental with how you reach out and connect and attract. With discussions, events, videos, photos, and a wealth of widgets you are now only limited by your imagination to making marketing fun. That’s right – fun!

One other enticement to get involved with Facebook – if you want to try your hand at advertising to specific people who are the most likely potential customers, well, Facebook's advertising is a smart system. Facebook collects an awful lot of information about members and they offer amazing controls and options to insure that your message is seen by those who are most likely to be a match. Sure beats search engine plans that in comparison could seem willy nilly. If you don’t have the marketing budget to pay for tire kickers and accidental clickers cruising through the digital divide then give Facebook a try.
Become a fan of Bumblebee Design & Marketing LLC and let’s explore the possibilities!

Six Pixels Of Separation

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:16:42 -0700

I am currently reading Mitch Joel’s book Six Pixels of Separation, Everyone is Connected, Connect Your Business to Everyone. I am an avid reader and read a lot of new books coming out all of the time regarding social media, marketing, business and I often go back to some older books that serve as refreshers for business. I also spend a lot of time reading blogs by thought leaders and industry specialists as well as some general interest blogs - the wealth of knowledge and accessibility to great ideas and learning is a new phenomenon made available with the internet over the past few years.

But at this moment, I am reading Joel’s book and it is one that I recommend for every entrepreneur and CEO. There are several books out today that are excellent resources to help understand the new mediums, changes in the market place today and the opportunities that are unfolding.

If you have not begun to rethink your business model since the crash, then I suggest that you take some time NOW and begin to rethink how you are doing things – what you are doing and why. Reading Six Pixels will be a good starting point toward that endeavor.

I have been thinking a lot lately. My industry is flooded with competitors, it is changing at a speed that is dizzying on a slow day and when I think back to when I started in 1996, my company isn’t using any of the same tools, software or services that it did then. If I had been unwilling to change with the times I would be on government subsidy now.

The bashing that our economy has taken and the long road ahead for many to climb out of the slump and into profitability should not be a hard road to survival but the impetus to redefine everything for a greater tomorrow. One of the things that I like in this book is a recounting of how far we have come and in a relatively short period of time. The Internet is not the Wild West that it once was but it is now a wide-open landscape much like the Land Run of 1889.

There were already people living out west and doing well, but land grab opportunity was an open invitation for the pioneers who took to horseback and covered wagons, to claim prime land to settle in for a brighter future.

Social Media has been changing the landscape of business and human connection for several years now and it will continue. The rush is not showing any signs of slowing down and there are savvy and spirited entrepreneurs conquering old stalwarts of industry and creating new and exciting markets.
To not get involved would be like driving 1908 Model T today in the Indy 500. Sure you will make it to the finish line but you won’t be first or second, in fact you will be coming to the finish line about the time that the audience has all left the field.

Yes, a strong sales team can and should still bring in new business and some traditional marketing can still drive interest and attention. Yes direct mail and email campaigns should all still be a part of the program. And being realistic, no - you won't get into social media and be an instant success or an overnight celebrity. But to not take into account where the world is going and get on board – you might find that the ship has sailed and you haven’t even arrived at the dock yet.

If you are on Linkedin, take it up a notch. If you are on Facebook, give your brand a page, if you are making notes or thinking about things, start blogging. Stake your digital claim, get a foothold in the digital domain, explore what it going on and be open to new ideas – you may find that a new aspect of your business can take hold and grow.

Pick up the book Six Pixels of Separation – it will help you begin putting things into perspective, give you some ideas about how to get started and begin to understand what is evolving out there today. These are exciting times. You are a part of a great revolution – or an evolution of a new economy – based on trust, transparency, connectivity and engagement. All these delivered desktop to desktop and domain to mobile phone.

Facebook Got Lists Right

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 09:54:54 -0700

Now this is a list I can get enthusiastic about!

Everything is about lists these days. Shopping lists, to-do lists, Twitter lists and on and on. Twitter introduced lists and all though there seemed to be a lot of tweeting,news articles and blogs about it, I still fail to see the value other than a popularity contest with search engine ramifications.

I can get excited about my to-do list as I cross things off and I feel like I am accomplishing things, and even my shopping list holds some excitement as my hopes of coming home and not facing the sinking feeling that I am left without the thing or things that I forgot to purchase – key survival items such as coffee, toilet paper or dog food.

But now another list has appeared that gives me cause to get excited. Facebook has had lists but now they enhanced the feature so that as you post an update you can actually choose who sees that post! Isn’t that terrific? So if your Facebook friends are family members, business associates, lovers, neighbors or maybe bridge club groups, you can post and decide who sees what! That is a useful tool if you use it! You can even customize the list to be sure that you have segmented all your groups.

If you were worried about getting onto Facebook because you didn’t know what you could say that would be all right for everyone to see, problem solved! Come on in – it is safe now.

Engage Don't Enrage

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:25:56 -0700

You can now stream your Twitter feed into LinkedIn. That is the latest hot news and the chatter about this new feature is getting a lot of attention. However I caution you that this might not be a good thing. LinkedIn members might not appreciate a flood of tweets. It might be a good idea if used strategically. They probably felt pressured to catch up with Facebook, Plaxo and other networking sites.

But is this really necessary? Think before you pull your Twitter stream into LinkedIn. If you tweet a lot this might not be appreciated by your network. When people agreed to link to you, is this what they signed up for? Believe it or not, not everyone is a fan of Twitter and the interactions on LinkedIn tend to be more group driven. That means join groups on LinkedIn, post questions, answer questions, comment on posts, and start a dialogue. If you think one of your connections would benefit from a particular group you joined – suggest to them that they join as well but not everyone is going to have the same interests so be selective, keep it relevant to the person you are connecting with. Don’t treat them all the same.

Don’t lose site of the purpose of social media. Social media is to ENGAGE not ENRAGE with a pounding stream of marketing messages. If you are planning on making the Twitter-LinkedIn connection and your tweets are plentiful and useless, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be unlinking real soon.

Think before you Link! How will your LinkedIn audience react?

Twitter Introduces LISTS

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:06:59 -0700

Just the other day my Twitter account was activated for their latest feature – LISTS. This is like a new velvet rope system and possibly an attempt to keep up with the third party applications that are already out there and some doing quite well.

LISTS is a new feature that gives you the opportunity to group who you follow and to manage the stream of in-coming tweets. I believe that it is a new authority system. The popular kids get on a lot of lists and the spammers, hacks and less intriguing tweeters will be lost in twitterspace. If you are not on someone’s list, chances are you won’t be seen or heard.

I do believe that serious Twitter users are already using third party applications to monitor what is important and shut out the shrill screams of desperate marketing hacks. Current statistics reveal that a large portion of tweets are made from outside of Twitter site and so supports this theory.

Is Twitter now just jumping in to the solution or are they creating a new level of rankings? Given their recent deal with Bing and Google, this could be a part of the groundwork that sorts out the relevant Tweets to show in search results. If Twitter can capture the LISTS process over the third party applications like Tweetdeck and Seismic to name two of the more popular, then maybe Bing and Google won’t have to work as hard to do the math on who counts and who doesn’t.

Because Twitter plans to show in your profile how many lists you appear on the race to get followers might take a back seat to race to get on others’ lists. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and if it takes hold. Brace yourself for a new stream of DMs and @you saying ‘don’t forget to add me to your list’. Oh boy, already the DMs are 'add me to your facebook', 'add me to your LinkedIn', 'add me to your email', and so on. Not to mention all the 'click here to get rich' and 'click here to get followers' and other sales messages.

Oh, you thought I was a Twitter fan? I am, but it is not without its drawbacks and that is why I use Tweetdeck to manage the streams of tweets and monitor my LISTS to see what I want to see and follow the tweets of those who are important in my world. I can’t be expected to read all the tweets that twitter by – even with my meager list of following 644 Tweeters, it is too much to take in on a regular basis. There are still too many people who have Twitter wrong. They broadcast sales messages or self promotional links all day long or those who believe that sending out dozens of links to interesting things helps keep them interesting. Have these people heard of the concept ‘moderation’ or how about dialogue? Maybe a little mystery in their lives would make them more interesting.

So will I implement LISTS? I am undecided. For now it is something that will have to go on my ‘to-do’ LIST.

Care to comment?

Social Media Is No Longer A Choice

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:48:37 -0700

If you have been holding off engaging in social media because you either thought it was a fad or waste of time, you need to adjust your thinking immediately.

This is not going away and it is not a passing fad. Social Media is no longer a choice, it is an obligation to the effective marketing and reputation management of your company. In fact, social media has become the key if not only ingredient in search engine optimization. I admit that certain properties ebb and flow in terms of popularity but things have just changed dramatically.

What just happened that calls for such a drastic statement? All over the digital news sphere the announcement that Twitter brokered a deal with Bing and Google. If you want to get found you better get out there and start socializing and get others to join in the chatter about your company. Search results will be determined on the buzz you’ve created out there in the Twitterverse and the overall digital universe.

The speculation that Twitter would soon die out from the public annoyance of narcissistic inane tweets and Twitter Executives not settling on a monetization plan has now ended.

There are dozens of blog and news posts all over the internet popping up every minute by authoritative and well known personalities but I thought I would share one by Jeremiah Owyang, whose opinion I trust and respect.

Web Strategist, Jeremiah Owyang, from Silicon Valley wrote in his recent blog:
“Twitter brokers a deal that offers search engines Microsoft Bing and Google Search access to their real time data streams. Also, Facebook, offers up public status updates to be searched and served up to Microsoft’s Bing. This trend towards micro media requires companies to pay attention to the real time and social web for marketing, support, and competitive strategies.”

Some observations or predictions he makes are as follows:
• Expect real time data to merge with existing search engines, as a result we should see Google Search and Bing to serve up search results based on: 1) Real time information based on what Twitter users are saying, including memes from trending topics, 2) Preference given to links and URLs that are tweeted by users with more followers or authority, 3) Geo location of tweets to influence search results. 4) Eventually results will be served up by your friends. Google has given a nod to serve up information based on your social graph (your friends) using Google Profile.
• Twitter’s Future: Seamless Integration with the Web. Success for Twitter is about becoming a data protocol that’s embedded everywhere.
• Customers Influence Search Results. An even more amazing impact of these announcements is that for the first time, consumers will be able to directly impact web search results. Although companies spend thousands of marketing dollars controlling their search results, customers and competitors can quickly and cheaply impact search results using simple tools like Twitter.

Jeremiah also goes on to provide key issues that as business owners you now really need to consider. He says, and I agree, "Even if your company is not active on Twitter, your customers can influence the search results related to your company –you must pay attention to this trend. Just as your company likely already has a search strategy through search optimization or paid search terms, you’ll need to extend micromedia to your strategy." He makes the following suggestions:

1. Develop a Listening Strategy That Starts With Roles and Process. Every business and market is now moving faster and faster as information spreads around the globe in minutes –if not seconds. Companies must be ready to quickly identify flare ups, be ready to respond, and correct incorrect information. Develop a listening strategy that has internal roles set in place, a process to respond and the right tools like Radian 6, Visible Technologies, BuzzMetrics, or Cymfony.
2. Change The Marketing Mindset –Legacy Methods Ineffective. Search marketers must understand that blasting marketing information through Facebook or Twitter won’t be effective, as search engines will filter out irrelevant messages that nobody listens to. Instead, marketers should allow content on all web properties and email marketing to be easily added to Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites by offering icons that encourage people to share. Providers like ShareThis and AddThis make this simple to do.
3. Develop Influence Marketing Programs. Since these search engines have all noted that they will rank real time information on a person’s authority and not just traditional page ranking, marketers must double down on building these relationships. More than ever, brands will need to foster discussions within Twitter as retweet, replies, and linking behavior will influence what is served up on results pages. It takes time to build real relationships that develop into public conversations so get started now.

To read Jeremiah's full blog post.
If you are interested in learning more, attend my next workshop being held November 12, 2009. “Finding and Nurturing Leads Using Social Media” You can see more and sign up here.

Yoo Hoo, I'm Over Here!

mardy@bumblebeellc.com (Mardy Sitzer) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:45:58 -0700

The never ending quest for getting found on the internet as we invest more and more time and resources on our websites and in social mediums remains an extremely hot topic in many business conversations.

If you want new business to find you, then you need to strategically leave breadcrumbs sprinkled across the internet. If you aren’t out there, you don’t exist. These breadcrumbs should reveal enough about you that a prospect can begin to feel that they know who you are and can trust you.

A recent article at Tech Journal South, The Findability Group's Heather Lutze presented her Social Media Advertising Formula for optimizing business presence at six top social sites. We thought this was a good summation and wanted to share, so here's a brief breakdown:

1. LinkedIn. This platform is great for sending updates to business associates, Lutze says. Tip: To search-optimize your profile, select one core keyword and deftly repeat it in your copy.
2. Facebook. Your best choice for posting a "personal" profile online. Tip: A profile keyword here can set up a company exec as an expert within the closed Facebook community.
3. MySpace. Create a fully developed business profile in this open community. Tip: Search your target B2B audience within the site to develop "a great outreach network," Lutze suggests. (IMHO this medium has lost ground in the B2B community but remains solid for the music oriented.)
4. YouTube. An excellent forum for viral campaigns. Tip: For each amazing video you create, include a keyword in the title and in its description.
5. Your Blog. Starting a blog should be a top social priority, Lutze advises. Tip: Select a unique keyword before writing each post.
6. Twitter. Use Twitter to push tweets out to other platforms like Facebook, and increase your reach. Tip: "Personalize your Twitter background for a … branded look and feel."

If you haven’t already started, then gather your team, mentors, vendors and develop a strategy and plan and get virtual! The impact has immediate effects on driving traffic to your website.