Monthly Archives: April 2014

4 Ways Visual Design Can Improve Your Social Media Marketing

See on Scoop.itEnterprise Social Media

Find out how to use color, font, update templates and image filters to improve visual design and build recognition for your brand on social media networks.

Mike Ellsworth‘s insight:

If you’re not thinking hard about the design of your messaging, perhaps this article will convince you to start.

 

Via @kimgarst

See on www.socialmediaexaminer.com

Search Marketers Need to Evolve: Google is Rewarding Marketing Strategists

See on Scoop.itEnterprise Social Media

Google is increasingly rewarding broader marketing strategy, which means your job is evolving. It isn’t enough to focus on search marketing; we all need to become marketing strategists. Here’s how.

Mike Ellsworth‘s insight:

This is a really good, comprehensive article on the state of search engine optimization, with a look toward the future, when Google will no longer provide as much information about the search terms that caused a user to land on your site.

See on moz.com

What Type of Content Should You Create: Long or Short?

See on Scoop.itEnterprise Social Media

Which form of content should you focus on creating? Should it be long, short, or a mix? If a mix, what’s the right ratio? It all depends. Here are the pros and cons of each, plus six critical questions to help you figure out what’s right for you.

Mike Ellsworth‘s insight:

Google has recently increased its weighting for longform content (2,000 words). So does that mean you should blather on well after you’ve made your point. No. Quality is still important.

 

But if you’re still thinking you need to only select topics you can write 500 words on, think again.

 

Via @OmerShubert

See on searchenginewatch.com

Your Salesforce is Not Ready to do Social Selling

You say you’re interested in this concept you’re hearing so much about: social selling.

You may even have invested some money in social selling Webinars or in actual training.

But your salesforce is not ready to do social selling.

Not all of them.

LinkedIn's Social Selling adoption curve

LinkedIn’s Social Selling Readiness Spectrum

Think of how many times you’ve sent your salespeople to training. CRM training. Sales 2.0 training. SPIN Selling.

How much of this training did your sales folks actually absorb? How much did they implement? And how much success did it generate? We’re thinking not much.

Why? Because sales people hate sales training. If they are honest with you, they’ll tell you they’d much rather have you pull out their fingernails with rusty pliers while their eyes are gouged out by rabid pigeons than go to a sales seminar. And the main reason they think this way is that most of them – not all to be sure – think what they’re doing is just fine, works as it always has, and always will. They can do 40 dials and 40 emails a day and like magic, some sales fall out the bottom of the funnel.

If you’re honest with yourself, though, you know that smiling and dialing is becoming increasingly less effective.

So on the subject of social selling, a groundbreaking leap forward that actually works, 75 percent of your sales staff either won’t change or hates the idea. Of the other 25 percent, about half can pick it right up and start seeing results in 90 days.

But you have two problems: You don’t know who is in which group; who are the laggards and who are the leaders who are ready to embrace social selling.

So you train them all. What a waste. You’re throwing away 75 percent of your training dollars, if you’re lucky.

So what’s the solution? Do a social selling readiness assessment first. Don’t bother Googling it. You’ll find only a few companies even talking about it, and even fewer equipped to help you execute an assessment.

Save Money on Social Selling Training

Here’s how you can save 35 percent of the cost of a social selling training plan. First, do a social selling readiness assessment (coincidentally, we can help with that.) Figure out who the top 25 percent are. Do some further analysis to find the 12 percent who are really, really ready to get moving on social selling. (Hint: they’re probably already among your top performers.)

Then train the 12 percent on social selling techniques. Give them plenty of space and time to start producing results. It will take at least 90 days, perhaps longer. Be patient. You may need to mentor and train them a bit more along the way.

Once this group starts generating impressive results with social selling, you can expect to see increases in revenue productivity per sales rep of 17 percent or more, according to a CSO Insights study. This is sure to pique the interest of the other portion of the 25 percent. Train them next.

Once the 75 percent see the success of these first cohorts, their attitudes toward social selling will change. Assess their willingness to now embrace social selling. Perhaps half or maybe even more will be interested and ready to change. Train them, but be prepared for more mentoring and refreshers than with the first groups.

Fire the rest and replace them with (fewer) social sellers.

So we just saved you a bundle. Contact us for more details.


Infinite Pipeline book cover

Get our new book, The Infinite Pipeline: How to Master Social Media for Business-to-Business Sales Success online here. You can save $5 using Coupon Code WXG8ABP2

What Others Are Saying

Infinite Pipeline offers practical advice for using social media to extend relationship selling online. It’s a great way to get crazy-busy prospects to pay attention.”
—Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies

“Sales is all about relationships and trust. Infinite Pipeline is the ‘how to’ guide for maximizing social networks to find and build relationships, and generate trust in our digital age.”
—Sam Richter, best-selling author, Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling (2012 Sales book of the year)

Infinite Pipeline will be the authority on building lasting relationships through online social that result in bottom line business.”
—Lori Ruff, The LinkedIn Diva, Speaker/Author and CEO of Integrated Alliances

How to Grow an Awesome Community to Fuel Your Social Startup

See on Scoop.itEnterprise Social Media

When you’re starting a social company, building a loyal and engaged community is paramount.

Mike Ellsworth‘s insight:

We couldn’t have said it better. Check our social selling book, The Infinite Pipeline: How to Master Social Media for B2B Sales Success – Sales Person Edition  http://bit.ly/InfPipe 

 

The four points:

 

1. Community starts from within

2. Listen with open ears

3. Give them the personal touch

4. Make their dreams come true

Via @lastbabyboomer 

See on thenextweb.com

Open Letter to Boomer Executives | #AskaMillenial

See on Scoop.itEnterprise Social Media

Dear Mr. or Mrs. Baby Boomer Executive,
I hope you are sitting down. I have some startling news to share with you: your millennial initiatives are worthless.
The tools and tactics you have been using to “understand”, “market”, “speak”, “engage”, “connect” and “win” millennial customers are …

Mike Ellsworth‘s insight:

Want to market to millenials? Ask one.

See on bigthink.com

5 Really Fast Twitter Tricks

See on Scoop.itEnterprise Social Media

Twitter continues to be one of the main social channels for individuals and brands and there’s a big reason for that: Twitter has over 43 million monthly active users, and those user demographics a…

Mike Ellsworth‘s insight:

Just as the title says, some good, fast Twitter tricks:

 

1. Follow nearly everyone who follows you

2. Unfollow regularly

3. Favorite a tweet for future reference

4. Try out new functionality

5. Check your notifications first

Via @gregweir

See on www.business2community.com