Business901 » Social Media

Use the tools of Political Campaign Marketing to turn your Social Media into a Handshake!

business901 — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:18:00 +0000

Campaign Marketing was discussed in the Business901 podcasts, What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 1 of 2 and part 2 of 2. Part one was more of a strategic view and part 2 more tactical. This is a transcription of both of the the podcasts. I find political campaign marketing very relevant to typical business marketing. Political campaigns have more experience in creating touch-points, managing limited budgets and crafting their message to the audience that they are addressing. An excellent primer when developing a social media strategy and turning it into a handshake.

Derek A. Pillie has served public and political candidates for over 15 years. He has served on the staff of Indiana’s Third Congressional District, most recently as District Director for just over a decade. In that role, he oversaw Indiana operations of the office; including constituent outreach and helping taxpayers solve problems with federal agencies. He also worked on crucial economic development projects and was heavily involved with advising the office on online media and marketing decisions.

After his federal service expired Derek started working at Cirrus ABS, an online marketing and technology development company. He currently manages their business development efforts. Cirrus ABS has added political campaigns to the portfolio of industries they serve since Derek joined the team, and he continues volunteer efforts on behalf of candidates he supports.

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Value on the Digital Frontier

business901 — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:30:00 +0000

Tomorrows podcast guest, Joe Pine introduces the Multiverse in this video and in his new book,Infinite Possibility: Creating Customer Value on the Digital Frontier. Joe Pine seeks to do nothing less than redefine our known universe — a bold goal which manifested itself in The Multiverse, a 3D framework he created. By examining the fields created at the intersection of three axes (space/no space, time/no time, and matter/no matter), Joe introduces us to eight realms for creating value by innovating experiences. Physical virtuality, for example, involves designing things virtually and then making them a reality, such as the way 3D bio-printers manufacture human tissue and organs. Through Joe’s eyes, we see the future and it is mind blowing!

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What political campaigns can teach business

business901 — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 14:35:00 +0000

According to social media analyst Charlene Li, selling a product is much like selling a candidate. The best approach is tap into your core group of supporters, empower them to evangelize on your behalf and then let go! Li says that the rise of social networks has impacted the way politicians communicate with their base and that businesses can learn to have a conversation, rather than "message" their audience. Another tip — businesses should develop a thicker skin when it comes to negative feedback and respond to criticism in real-time, like politicians are doing via the internet.

Charlene gives a great overview in the video and this is the theme of my upcoming podcast with Derek Pillie, a fifteen veteran of the political campaign trail.

There are some great lessons that businesses can take away from politics. People have a tendency to evaluate and expect marketing to create immediate business for them. Many times they evaluate marketing firms based who has the “best idea.” If that is the case, why try to convince customers to change their mind? Instead, embrace them!

As a marketing consultant, I view political campaigning as one of the most productive methods of creating immediate business. Campaign Managers are experts at using the vast array of available touch-points to reach customers and more importantly, they are Deadline Driven – Election Day.

I wonder what business can teach politics?

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Demonstrating Social Media using an Elephant

business901 — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 02:35:00 +0000

Great lesson on using social media. It is not about the tools but more about the connection. We have all heard this before but the Antwerp Zoo give us the perfect lesson through the birth of a baby elephant.

They do it so well that at the end of the video, you hardly remember a single social media tool used.

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Is it to late to handle privacy and recycling?

business901 — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 02:40:00 +0000

Following publication of his book "Shaping Things (Mediaworks Pamphlets) ", American Science Fiction author Bruce Sterling share his views and visions at LIFT France 09 about the future of Design, the broad concept of an "Internet of Things", and reflects on two important issues: Privacy and Recycling. Bruce has been a regular speaker at LIFT events.

Interesting concepts and Bruce shows a real passion for his subject. His book was written six years ago and it is amazing how many of the ideas are still prevalent today.

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What will your workplace be like in 2020?

business901 — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 03:16:40 +0000

Jeanne Meister, co-author of The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today discusses how online technologies and the advent of digital and social media are changing the ways in which companies source talent, customize employee development, and promote agile leadership.

In this video Jeanne connects 2020 with TODAY!

The 2020 Workplace is a book that I believe is a must read. Key points are made about having 5 generations in the workplace, reputation management and the role that social media will play internally and externally at your organization. I think one of the key takeaways from the book is the authors’ description of the social learning ecosystem. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

Many of the items mentioned are being used in forward thinking companies already and I believe that you need to be preparing for them now. The authors do outline a strategy on how you can do just that.

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Using the Media Engagement Framework as your Kanban?

business901 — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:10:00 +0000

This is a transcription of the Business901 podcast, Connecting Social Media and Traditional Marketing thru Measurement podcast with Guy R. Powell co-author of the new book,ROI of Social Media: How to Improve the Return on Your Social Marketing Investment.

His company, DemandROMI, (www.DemandROMI.com) is based on helping marketers and business executives to take these critical concepts and implement them within his client organizations. His consulting career began ATKearney delivering strategic and tactical solutions to help companies fuel and maintain extraordinary growth. While at ATKearney he worked on a variety of wide ranging projects for both mid-tier and Global 100 companies in Europe, providing strategic assessments, business re-alignments and turn-arounds.

Connecting Social Media and Traditional Marketing

The Media Engagement Framework is one of those “Aha” moments that you will have when reading the book. We touch upon it in the podcast but did not go into the depth you will need to complete it. However, I think it is well worth your time to study the framework, and print it out especially if you decide to listen to the podcast. I would even take it a step further and print it out as an A3 or larger and start pinning post-it-notes to it as part of your War Room or Battle Wall. What if you started limiting your WIP (Work in Process) in each area? Would that make you more effective?

Guy’s website: www.ROIofSocialMedia.com.

P.S. In the transcription check out the 90-9-1 concept.

Guy’s Books include:
ROI of Social Media: How to Improve the Return on Your Social Marketing Investment
Marketing Calculator: Measuring and Managing Return on Marketing Investment
Return on Marketing Investment

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Connecting Social Media and Traditional Marketing thru Measurement

business901 — Tue, 17 May 2011 03:05:00 +0000

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to connect all your marketing activities to their impact on sales revenue? Wouldn’t it be great to remove the guess work from putting your marketing plans together? Over the last 20 years, Guy Powell of demand ROMI has done just that in senior level sales & marketing across the globe both on the client and consulting sides.

Guy is a marketing measurement expert and has been measuring the effectiveness of social media right from the start. Guy states, “We can’t measure the effect of social media as a stand-alone media. Social media has a unique impact on consumer behavior but we need to realize that it also affects the impact of traditional media and traditional media impacts the effect of social media.” Our podcast discusses the interaction between the two and his Media Engagement Framework (P.S. Very tempted to make an A3 out of this!!!) pictured below.

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Download Podcast: Click and choose options: Connecting Social Media or go to the Business901 iTunes Store

Guy’s website: www.ROIofSocialMedia.com.

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A Business Perspective on Social Media

business901 — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 03:44:00 +0000

The secret to connecting with consumers in a fragmented, chaotic marketplace, then, lies in how businesses collaborate with customers. WIKIBRANDS: Reinventing Your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace (McGraw-Hill; January 2011) by Sean Moffitt and Mike Dover builds on a breakthrough, multimillion-dollar marketing research program initiated by Don Tapscott, technology guru and author of Grown Up Digital (McGraw-Hill), to deliver a state-of-the-art appraisal of the latest developments in customer engagement. Using findings from this study and hundreds of other examples, Moffitt and Dover explain how brands like Ford, Zappos, Starbucks, P&G, and other businesses large and small stopped marketing at consumers, and embraced peer-to-peer technologies to:

Engage customers via social influence, word-of-mouth, and user-generated content
Create an experience through the creation and aggregation of customer-driven ratings, reviews, and online groups
Build communities using Twitter, “crowdsourcing,” and other shared experiences
Make connections that are authentic, built on genuine trust, and enhance value by creating a network that ties a brand’s consumers as much to each other as to the brand

Part wake-up call, part action plan, WIKIBRANDS is the blueprint for how businesses are driving innovation and growth through technology-based immersive customer interaction.

- From the McGraw-Hill News Release:

A Business Perspective on Social Media

This is a transcription of a the Business901 podcast, Reinventing Your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace with co-author Mike Dover. Mike is Managing Partner of Socialstruct Advisory Group. As Vice President, Research Operations, for New Paradigm (Moxie Insight), he led the operations for research programs for the bestselling books Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital. He also has provided review support for more than a dozen other books.

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Reinventing Your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace

business901 — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 03:35:00 +0000

From the McGraw-Hill Press Release:

Social Media. Brand Collaboration. Content aggregation. Microblogging. User-generated content. And the list goes on… It’s been said that business is in the midst of the customer-centric marketing revolution—a trend which points toward business treating brands less like “property” and more like an extension of an organization’s values. The upshot is this: Smart companies are finally figuring out how peoples’ desire to participate is becoming a key driver of marketing success. But to be a winner in this environment, businesses have to fill this need and at the same time compete for consumers’ increasingly scarce time and shrinking attention spans. More complicated still, companies have to do all of this while also earning consumers’ trust.

The secret to connecting with consumers in a fragmented, chaotic marketplace, then, lies in how businesses collaborate with customers.

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Mike is Managing Partner of Socialstruct Advisory Group. As Vice President, Research Operations, for New Paradigm (Moxie Insight), he led the operations for research programs for the bestselling books Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital. He also has provided review support for more than a dozen other books.

Mike Dover, co-author of the book, WIKIBRANDS: Reinventing Your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace was interviewed on the Business901 Podcast and though we did not cover every topic above, we certainly touched upon how you go about engaging customers, creating experiences and building communities – FROM A BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE.

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Social Messiness Explained

business901 — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:30:00 +0000

This is a transcription of the Business901 podcast, Making Sense of Social Messiness. My guest was Francois Gossieaux is co-founder and partner at Human 1.0 (Beeline Labs), a marketing innovation strategy firm, a Senior Fellow and a Board Member at the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR).

Making Sense of Social Messiness

The Hyper-Social Organization: Eclipse Your Competition by Leveraging Social Media , Francois Goissieaux of Human 1.0 and Ed Moran of Deloitte identify how (and which) social media are fundamentally changing core business processes and the way businesses and customers interact. These changes are being driven by what the authors call the “Hyper-Social Shift.”

A PDF Version from Change this on the Subject: The Seven Myths of Hyper-Social Organizations.

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Making Sense of Social Messiness

business901 — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 03:35:00 +0000

I encourage you to sample the first 2 minutes of this podcast. This is a tool-less conversation about social media. We actually started out the podcast with me commenting on the title and yes another book on social media which led to this comment:

Francois: I think a lot of people are like that. I wish we wouldn’t have had the subtitle that says it’s a competition by leveraging social media, because that’s what people think: “Ugh, there’s another social media book,” and it’s so not a social media book, it’s really a business book.

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In The Hyper-Social Organization: Eclipse Your Competition by Leveraging Social Media , Francois Goissieaux of Human 1.0 and Ed Moran of Deloitte identify how (and which) social media are fundamentally changing core business processes and the way businesses and customers interact. These changes are being driven by what the authors call the “Hyper-Social Shift.”

An excerpt from the podcast:

I think this study from McKinsey that says that 60 to 80 percent of all buying decisions are made, without anybody from your company being involved and without any person from your company being used. So, they are made by people asking their tribe’s members, their friends, their colleagues, experts that they respect and stuff like that, that’s how they make their buying decisions. And so, you need to go a step beyond thinking of advertising and start thinking about how can I make, how can I develop content that people who are already making recommendations about my products and services are going to use to make better recommendations.

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Online collaboration is leading the way for Lean Marketing

business901 — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 04:38:00 +0000

Businesses and individuals are becoming exponentially more productive and efficient thanks to the innovations that connect them. Between email, Skype, and telecommuting, the landscape of business communication and collaboration is vastly different than it was even a few years ago. We will see just how many of these technologies are helping businesses today, and how quickly people are now able to collaborate and innovate together.

Our organizational structures are getting flatter every day. Technology is not making us less personal, we are getting more personal through technology. We buy less from companies every day and more from people.

Technology actually has evolved to a point that it is becoming anti-technology. The new business models are about communities and organizations must understand what makes them tick. In the book The Hyper-Social Organization: Eclipse Your Competition by Leveraging Social Media, the authors discuss the 4 pillars of Hyper-Sociality:

Tribe vs. market segment
Human-centricity vs. company centricity
Network vs. channel
Social messiness vs. process and hierarchy

The funny thing about all of this is that there will also be a rapid increase in exceptions, more of the anti-technology stuff and more people interactions. This change has invaded both customer service and marketing. Traditional print media, PR and advertising are gradually fading out. Even referrals have shifted from word of mouth to more of a tribal type relationship. If your organization is not already part of the tribe you are overlooked.

Just having a great product is not enough. Sure Apple looks like they are banging out innovation after innovation. But are they? Or is it more of the “Apple Tribe” that devours each new innovation with Steve Jobs as the head of the kingdom.

The next facet of business to change will likely be innovation, if it has not already. Co-creation is upon us and as our tools get better there will be more and more interactivity with our customers. Those exceptions that many of us dread will even become more normal and part of everyday innovation.

Sound like a lot of fun! Learning to market and innovate through iterative cycles is what Lean Marketing is all about. Using Lean on a project to project basis to reduce waste and make marketing and innovation more efficient is hardly effective. Empowering our people for a more human approach within the tribes we choose to network or participate in is the differentiation Lean provides. Lean provides the structure we need to provide value to this social messiness. Without, we lose our relevance and speed that is needed in the collaborative world that we are entering. I look forward to the great journey ahead.

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Are you focusing on your customers conversations?

business901 — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Over the past decade and more, the Internet has played an ever increasing part of everyone’s marketing. The recent rapid increase is due in large part due to the popularity of Social Media, even though the Internet has been around for close to three decades. With the advent of smaller devices, texting and twittering, bite size information is even becoming the norm versus the rarity. Just think, small bite size chunks of relevant information delivered to a massive but permission based audience is not only normal communication but the future of marketing.

There are generally two different types of marketing, inbound and outbound. The first is the traditional type, inbound. Traditional marketing for years has followed three principles, Advertising, Public Relation and Referrals. You juggle this trio trying to fill you funnel and then you follow-up, follow-up and follow-up. There is a lot of structure, planning, design and scheduling. Everything had to be delivered at the utmost quality, on budget and with deadlines. You plan what you expect to happen, and then regardless of the results, you forge ahead because you have invested so much time, effort and money that you have little choice.

I wonder if Marketing, Ad firms are trying to make this transition but are struggling with the results? For example, many resisted the entry into Social Media and now they are participating but are they trying to use their old principles in adapting to it? The managers may lack the experience of participation in the new media. As an example, many were trained and are very good at networking, developing PR relationships and creating ads. Though, still important they are just some of the many attributes needed.

How many of these managers could or would even recommend using the same content 30 different ways in 30 days? That may be a bit of exaggeration but the new marketer understands that he must reach his prospects and customers in many, many ways and cannot afford new content for all. In fact, in most cases the marketer has to be already participating in the community he is trying to reach.

The fundamental shift to understand is that budgets are no longer the driver. It is also important to note that the web is predominately free from a budget perspective, it is not a free ride. Relevant Content determines your success and that is measured by how well you engage your prospects within your scope of influence. Relevant Content is not FREE.

Many companies feel they are participating in Social Media simply because they have a Face Book Fan Page or a few followers on LinkedIn or that they Tweet their specials. The traditional marketing messages seldom work in Social Media. It may actually become an impediment. Social Media is not a static venue. It is a place for conversation.

Value Stream Marketing also follows three principles; Agility, Speed and Relevance. In this process very similar to what has happened in agile software development, we are learning as we proceed. We embrace Change. We embrace Transparency. We embrace Communication.

Value Stream Marketing is a whole new way of thinking; a whole new philosophy. To become truly proficient, you must go through a paradigm shift. I mean really, are you developing strategies to focus on the right customer conversation? If you’re not, download my eBook and test the waters. Don’t keep looking at your marketing with an old set of Tools!

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