relationship

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CIOs: Brand Your Enterprise Online

Part 9 of our series, What CIOs Need to Know About Social Media. A post on Mashable from a year and a half ago is still relevant to enterprise CIOs grappling with the impact of social media on the enterprise. In the post, Lon S. Cohen lists seven things CIOs should be considering. We’re taking a closer look at each of the item in Cohen’s framework. In this post, we take a look at Cohen’s fourth item.

  • Web 2.0 Content and Presentation Standards
  • Review and Approval Processes
  • Managing Corporate Reputation
  • Versions and Update Controls
  • Impact On Operating Environment
  • Establishing Project Priority
  • Compliance

Brand Your Enterprise Online

Your enterprise may employ branding tactics in your offline marketing, or you may feel that you either don’t need to, or don’t have the money to.

Online, you must pay at least some attention to branding efforts. A brand is a promise, and it’s also a handle by which people can find you, refer to you, and talk about you online. We’ve said before that online, if you build it, they won’t necessarily come. And if you have a haphazard, disorganized, or confused brand online, they may not come because they don’t associate what you do with your online presence.

Online Identity Calculator

Online Identity Calculator – cambodia4kidsorg

All your online marketing efforts should reinforce your brand, and aim to drive traffic to your Website, the center of your brand presence. It’s great to get people to read your blog. It’s great to have thousands of followers on Facebook or Twitter. The goal, however, should be to make your Website the hub of all your social media activities.

The first step is to ensure your domain name (the part after the www) is easy-to-remember, easy-to-spell, and content-appropriate. Make it simple, direct, and if possible, the first thing that comes into people’s minds when they think about the problem your business solves. Don’t be too clever.

For example, if your products deal with drinking water filters, ensure that the word “water” is part of your domain name.

If it’s going to serve the purpose of being a hub of social networking activity, your Website needs to be optimized. At a minimum, your site must:

  • Have a call to action
  • Clearly describe your business, purpose, and products
  • Enable users to bookmark, tag, or email your URL to a friend

Have a Call to Action

Of the Must Have Three, the call to action is the most important. If your site merely explains what you do and, somewhere buried on an interior page, allows your visitors to take an action to support you, it fails. Period.

Design your site to clearly communicate what visitors can do to help you, and give them a positive action they can take, whether it be a buy button, a “Like Us on Facebook” button, or at the very least, a newsletter signup button.

If you’re not doing these things, don’t begin using social media.

The reason is simple. Much of your activity on social networking sites can’t actually enable a direct action. For example, the best action that can happen upon reading one of your tweets is for the reader to click on an URL to go somewhere else. That somewhere else is your Website. Other social media sites are similar: Blogs, tagging sites, photo sharing sites, and so on, all lack features to complete a significant action. They’ll all lead people to your site, where you must make it easy for them to act.

In our book, Be a Person: the Social Media Operating Manual for Enterprises, we discuss the importance of a consistent social media branding and graphic presence in the Triangulate Your Social Media Presence section, and we talk a bit about site org­anization in the Engagement on Your Site  section. These activities will help re­inforce your online brand.

Socialize Your Website

Here are a few other specific recommendations for “socializing” your Website:

  • Ensure that your About page clearly describes your business in a way people will respond to. Yes, your board and your corporate structure is important, but is that the main thing you want people to know about your enterprise? Link to all your social media sites in this section.
  • Organize your site from your users’ perspective — If your site is organized based on your organizational structure it likely is not optimized for your users. This penchant for site structure mimicking organizational structure is called showing your corporate underpants.
  • Add commenting to your site — You’ll come to love it. And don’t require approval before comments are posted. See the previous section, Dealing with Negatives on page 203 for reasons why. A nice, free option for adding comments is DISQUS,[1] but be careful of privacy concerns when users use Facebook or Twitter to log in to post comments. We use DISQUS on our site.
  • Add an RSS feed to your site — RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication and is a way for people to subscribe to a page or a site and receive updates using an RSS reader such as Google Reader or others. It’s what’s behind those little orange icons ( ) you may have noticed on Websites. If your hosting software doesn’t already provide the ability to add RSS feeds to your pages, you may need to get a techie involved. You can also use third party software such as FeedYes[2] and others.
  • Ensure your site is usable — Usability is a deep and broad subject and beyond the scope of this blog. But in general, use text and background colors that provide a lot of contrast; don’t make text too small (especially if you want older folks to read your site); and avoid garish or distracting graphics. Also you need to think about your major navigation and whether it is logical to the typical user. And beware of putting important material in the upper right of pages. Users often ignore that area since it very often contains advertisements.
  • Ensure your site loads quickly — Sure, everybody in your organization might love the Flash movie that loads every time a user goes to your main page, but is it really worth a 30-second load time? And will it just annoy frequent visitors? Aren’t the frequent visitors you want to optimize your site for?
  • Register your site with all the top search engines — You need to be found.
  • Claim your blog on Technorati.com — Technorati indexes tens of millions of blog, but to be sure you get into their directory, you need to claim your blog.[3] This allows you to specify categories your blog will appear in, and specify tags for the blog, enabling others to find it. In addition, Technorati will track the effectiveness of links you embed in your blog, calculating your Technorati Authority.
  • Search Engine Optimize your Website — Use WebsiteGrader.com[4] to make sure your site is attractive to Google.

Once your main site is optimized, you’re ready to start to build or improve your online brand.

Next we’ll consider Cohen’s fifth point, Impact On Operating Environment.

For soup-to-nuts, strategy to execution processes, procedures and how-to advice, see our book, Be a Person: the Social Media Operating Manual for Enterprises. The book (itself part of a series for different audiences), is available in paper form at http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

[1] DISQUS: bit.ly/cbLzgB

[2] FeedYes: bit.ly/b7etvb

[3] Find out more about claiming your blog at: bit.ly/97muSS

CIOs: Versions and Update Controls – Social Media Optimization

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CIOs: Versions and Update Controls – Social Media Optimization

Part 8 of our series, What CIOs Need to Know About Social Media.

A post on Mashable from a year and a half ago is still relevant to enterprise CIOs grappling with the impact of social media on the enterprise. In the post, Lon S. Cohen lists seven things CIOs should be considering. We’re taking a closer look at each of the item in Cohen’s framework. In this post, we take a look at Cohen’s fourth item.

  • Web 2.0 Content and Presentation Standards
  • Review and Approval Processes
  • Managing Corporate Reputation
  • Versions and Update Controls
  • Impact On Operating Environment
  • Establishing Project Priority
  • Compliance

Creating and Managing a Social-Media-Aware Website

Frankly, Cohen’s discussion about version and update controls doesn’t really talk about anything different for social sites. Every enterprise site should have a content team, a Web Content Management System (we like Tridion), and enterprise-quality search engine (we like Endeca), a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) team, and good policies and procedures to ensure that dynamic and static content is managed, updated, edited and retired – in other words, a Content Development Life Cycle (CDLC).

Integrated Content Development Lifecycle

Integrated Content Development Lifecycle

The social media component of your enterprise site must fit into these structures, and can be treated in the same way as any other dynamic content. What we think changes when your site goes social is the necessity for a Social Media Optimization (SMO) strategy and practice. Developing SMO and integrating it into your version controls and update calendars is the essential activity you’ll need to undertake if you want to succeed in socializing your Website.

Social Media Optimization

SMO is a very deep subject, but let’s get started with a quick list of Social Media Optimization rules, created by Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Public Relations, who coined the term, and explained it like this:

The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs .

Bhargava proposed 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO)[1] which were later expanded to 16, and which we’ve adapted below:

  • Increase your linkability
    Enable and encourage others to link to you, and you should aggregate and link to your other content as well
  • Make tagging and bookmarking easy
    Enable others to tell a friend; list relevant tags on your pages
  • Reward inbound links
    Enable permalinks (links to, say, a blog that will never change) and feature bloggers who link to you
  • Help your content travel
    Submit PDFs or videos, and the like, to other sites to increase their reach
  • Encourage the mashup
    A mashup is when someone else does something with your content; the classic case is the Google Maps Mashup[2]
  • Be a User Resource, even if it doesn’t help you
    The classic give to get; contribute to the community and it will come back to you; link users off your site if it will help them
  • Reward helpful and valuable users
    Reward influencers and champions by promoting their works on the homepage, develop a rating system, or just drop them a quick note in private telling them you appreciate them
  • Participate
    If you’ve read this far, you know why
  • Know how to target your audience
    If you’ve read this far, you know why
  • Create content
    While this seems like a duh moment, think about the content you create in terms of how it can be spread by your community
  • Be real
    If you’ve read this far, you know why
  • Don’t forget your roots, be humble
    Just a good rule to live by, overall
  • Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh
    Pundits from Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose) to Woody Allen (A relationship, I think, is like a shark, you know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies) have advised this
  • Develop a Social Media Optimization strategy
    A Social Media Optimization strategy, like all strategies, involves defining objectives, setting goals, and tracking progress
  • Choose your Social Media Optimization tactics wisely
    Don’t do social media to keep up with the Joneses — the Joneses may have a different audience, different objectives, and different resources
  • Make Social Media Optimization part of your process and best practices
    As we’ve stressed, don’t graft social media onto your organization; assimilate it and make it part of your way of doing business

Next we’ll consider how to Brand Your Enterprise Online.

For soup-to-nuts, strategy to execution processes, procedures and how-to advice, see our book, Be a Person: the Social Media Operating Manual for Enterprises. The book (itself part of a series for different audiences), is available in paper form at http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

[1] Bhargava’s 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO): bit.ly/cbHXMh

[2] Google Maps Mania: bit.ly/an0Hly

CIOs: Techniques for Handling Trolls

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CIOs: Techniques for Handling Trolls

Part 7 of our series, What CIOs Need to Know About Social Media.

A post on Mashable from a year and a half ago is still relevant to enterprise CIOs grappling with the impact of social media on the enterprise. In the post, Lon S. Cohen lists seven things CIOs should be considering. We’re taking a closer look at each of the item in Cohen’s framework. In this post, we continue our look at Cohen’s third item.

  • Web 2.0 Content and Presentation Standards
  • Review and Approval Processes
  • Managing Corporate Reputation
  • Versions and Update Controls
  • Impact On Operating Environment
  • Establishing Project Priority
  • Compliance

General Approaches to Trolls

So how do you deal with trolls? Well, first you need to determine that the person is really a troll, not just a clueless newbie uninitiated in the norms of your community. This can be a difficult process, and so you should refrain from taking any action until the troll has established a body of work that has annoyed your community. Of course, that means letting a potential troll stir things up a bit first.

In the following we consider various strategies for dealing with trolls. When we refer to community below, think your Facebook page, your blog, or perhaps your proprietary community space.

Antisocial Networking - By planeta Ron Mader

Ignore Trolls

Many online pundits recommend ignoring trolls. This, however, is easier said than done, although it can be a very effective approach. The problem is, everyone has to ignore the troll. If even one community member engages the troll, the chase is on. However, the community manager should respond to trollish posts with a gentle reminder of the community guidelines for behavior. You may want to repeat this a few times, after which you should counsel the community to ignore the troll.

Ignoring trolls works because the main need a troll has is to be recognized, and responded to. If the troll’s posts are ignored, their behavior is not reinforced, and they may go elsewhere or fall silent.

But universally ignoring a troll is very hard to do. While long-time community members may recognize the troll’s posts for what they are — cries for attention — new members may respond to the outrageous or off-topic troll posts and give the troll the recognition they crave.

Others recommend responding to troll posts with love and understanding. We think that any response is likely to reinforce the behavior. While it may be effective to take the discussion offline, where possible, and try to convince the troll that their behavior is self-defeating, this is an approach with a low likelihood of success. Remember, the troll is probably a troll in real life as well. You’re not likely to be able to change a troll’s personality (at least, without years of psychotherapy).

OK, here’s a bit of troll humor:

  • How many trolls does it take to change a light bulb?
    Three. One to change the bulb; one to severely criticize the bulb for going out; and one to insult your parentage for complaining about the dark.

Do Not Confront and Out Trolls

There’s a school of thought that confronting and shaming trolls will be effective in discouraging them. For example, blogger Kirsten Sanford recounted[1] how she dealt with a troll who personally insulted her: She exposed his email address and his network address:

Everyone, say hi to Paul! [email address and IP address redacted] Paul left this wonderful comment for me recently. It left me feeling confused as to why someone / anyone would take the time to spew so much vitriol. It really makes no sense.

We do not recommend this approach. Sanford is not likely to change Paul’s mind, and also not likely to convince him to stop harassing her. What is more likely is that Paul will change identities and network addresses, and step up his harassment.

But even more important, confronting Paul as Sanford did runs the risk of making her look petty and vindictive. As Abraham Lincoln said, it’s better to say nothing and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Ban Trolls and Troll Posts

If you’re in charge of your community, you may have the power to delete troll posts and to ban members who are trolls. In fact, there are probably lots of things you can do about trolls:

  • Delete the post — This can be a controversial move, and could harm the trust you have build with your community members. We recommend that before you delete troll posts, you ask your community to weigh in on the move. Of course, you should only take this step after ignoring the troll has not worked, or if you’re unwilling to try that approach.
  • Ban the troll — This can also be controversial. If you have control over the membership of your community, you may have the ability to ban a troll for a period of time, or to remove them from the community altogether. If your community requires new registrations to be approved, you may even be able to prevent the troll from coming back. Be sure you have community support before taking this action.
  • Moderate all posts — Once again, if you have control, you may be able to require that all posts and comments in the community be approved before being published. This affects your entire community, and puts a big burden on your community manager. You are essentially saying that you don’t trust potential and existing community members, and that’s not a good way to start off or maintain a relationship. We recommend that this be a temporary solution at most. Requiring moderation for all posts will definitely affect community trust, and may cause defections.
  • First post moderation — Moderate every member’s first post. Once approved, the member is free to post anywhere. Depending on the level of control you have on your community software, you may be able to require moderation for the first post in each forum the user posts in. This technique can help blunt the effect of trollbots,[2] and it probably won’t bother your community members as long as they understand its intent. But it will do nothing to prevent the chronic troll.
  • Let trolls become part of the conversation — If your community can handle it, then let them handle it. It’s probably the next best solution if ignoring doesn’t work.

No matter how you want to deal with trolls, you need to create a troll policy as part of your community guidelines and make sure all community members understand it.

Next we’ll consider the fourth point in Cohen’s list: CIOs: Versions and Update Controls – Social Media Optimization.

For soup-to-nuts, strategy to execution processes, procedures and how-to advice, see our book, Be a Person: the Social Media Operating Manual for Enterprises. The book (itself part of a series for different audiences), is available in paper form at http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

[1] Sanford’s Dealing with Trolls: bit.ly/aOgy9L

[2] Trollbots are automated programs that cruise sites looking for open comment boxes that they can paste in advertising or other obnoxious material. There’s a hilarious automated troll simulator on Alex Kigerl ‘s site: bit.ly/ohUjUz

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Create a Mobile Social Computing Strategy

Create a Mobile Social Computing Strategy is the 11th in a series of excerpts from our book, Be a Person: the Social Media Operating Manual for Enterprises. The book (itself part of a series for different audiences), is available in paper form at http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV


Foursquare
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Some rights reserved by Joshua Kaufman

Create a Mobile Social Computing Strategy

Many of your prospects may not have regular access to computers or the Internet, and others may prefer mobile devices for their daily social media use. You may want to create a non-Web-based social comput­ing strategy to leverage:

  • Smart mobile phones
  • Tablets such as iPads and Android pads
  • Texting

Mobile social computing is becoming a very important way users are interacting with social media. According to Facebook, in mid-2011 more than 250 million people were using Facebook from their mobile devices every month.[10] That represents a growth of 384 percent in less than two years, as there were just 65 million[11] users of using Facebook Mobile[12] in September 2009.

In fact, a recent study[13] by Ground Truth found that US mobile users spend almost 60 percent of their time on social networks.

Percent of Time Spent on Mobile Internet Usage by Category

Category Percent
Social Networking 59.83%
Portals 13.65%
Operator 9.02%
Messaging 7.35%
Mobile Downloads 1.27%
All Other 8.88%

MySpace and Facebook were the top destinations cited in the study, which brings up an interesting point: Mobile users may not be the same demographic as computer-based social media users. Facebook has many times the number of members as the fading MySpace, yet MySpace was the most popular dest­ination for mobile users, followed closely by Facebook. No other highly-popular social media sites were in the top 10 in the study.

MySpace’s demographic skews young, with a generally higher proportion of high-school-age and younger users. However, with the sale of MySpace in mid-2011, you may want to watch carefully how the site evolves with new owners.

So if you want to reach mobile users, you’ll need to adjust your approach and your messaging.

There is even research that indicates that mobile social media use is more popular than computer-based usage. A study by Ruder Finn in February, 2010[14] found:

  • 91 percent of mobile phone users go online to socialize compared to only 79 percent of traditional desktop users
  • Mobile phone users are 1.6 times more likely to bank online compared to traditional desktop users (62 percent versus 39 percent)

Based on these statistics, you may find that you need to create a mobile social computing strategy that is slightly different from the rest of your external strategy. Since many social media sites are not optimized for the restricted bandwidth and small screen size of mobile phones, you may want to concen­trate your efforts on sites that better-support these devices. Facebook has been a leader in this area.

Next up: The 10 Commandments of Social Computing, pt 1

[1] Just one example of the many articles and studies that support this: SocialTimes’ How to Connect With Your Employees Using Social Media, Email and Some Common Sensebit.ly/9o1vnP

[2] Fournaise Marketing Group, bit.ly/bAkvPe bit.ly/dmwcg9

[3] Exist.com: bit.ly/kj6p4l

[4] Produced by iPressroom, a hosted content management software platform, with support from the Public Relations Society of America: bit.ly/djp0cw

[5] Foremski’s Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die! bit.ly/nwPtwB

[6] MultiVu – SHIFT Communications Debuts First-Ever Template for “Social Media Press Release”: prn.to/pE7XNd

[7] Some Social Search Optimization resources: slidesha.re/dTdBDMslidesha.re/dQ68z3 slidesha.re/igunmG

[8] Crash the Superbowl: bit.ly/hAlYld

[9] See the definition of badges on page 20

[10] Source: Facebook on.fb.me/biGYNr

[11] Source: Facebook bit.ly/9fE4qn

[12] Facebook Mobile: on.fb.me/bpiCmQ

[13] Ground Truth is a mobile computing research firm: bit.ly/caaE65

[14] Ruder Finn is a public relations firm: bit.ly/djlLb8

Writing Your Social Media Strategy

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Writing Your Social Media Strategy

Writing Your Social Media Strategy is the tenth in a series of excerpts from our book, Be a Person: the Social Media Operating Manual for Enterprises. The book (itself part of a series for different audiences), is available in paper form at http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV


Social Computing Strategy
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Some rights reserved by Gauravonomics

Writing Your Social Media Strategy

Work with your organization to identify and implement your organization-wide social media strategy and associated im­plementation plans. The following are the main social media areas that will require development and implementation.

Determine Important Points

Develop a set of talking points that will be used to engage potential evangelists and supporters using social media. The points may change over time, as you learn more about your community.

The talking points should emphasize the special qualities of your business’s services and foster a personal relationship with your brand. They should sound natural if delivered by an average person and should appeal to the emotional connection that your best customers feel with your enterprise’s products or services. However, the message needs to be customized by audience as much as possible, so you may need to develop several groups of talking points.

Identify Influencers

All people using social media are not equal in their ability to influence others. Identify those who are already talking about and recommending your products or services, especially those with a significant online and social media presence. You may, for example, start with your organization’s customer support people and concentrate on those who actively work with your clients.

Create talking points for these influencers and think of other ways to enable them to help spread the word. The message will spread better if it is more easily found, and influencers can help your business’s messages and products place higher in search engine results as well.

The goal is to quickly develop a number of evangelists, those who feel passionate about your products and your business and who will, with a little support, happily pass on inform­ation and help to convert others.

Create a Brand for the Social Media Effort

A good online movement needs a name. The name should be short, catchy, and communicate the goals of the effort. Build­ing on the research efforts above, create the name and then use it to brand all campaign efforts. Your organization’s site and partner Websites must help support the branding, and prom­inent­ly feature selected user-generated content (UGC) in support of the campaign.

A great example of this was Yum! Brands’ Crash the Super Bowl campaign[8] which encouraged people to submit ideas for Doritos commercials to run during Super Bowl XLV. Some of the user-generated ads were celebrated as the best presented during the entire broadcast.

Now this was a glitzy, highly costly campaign — especially con­sidering the $1 million price tag for an advertising slot. But your enterprise might do a similar campaign, for far less money, to encourage your supporters to offer you ideas for your YouTube channel. This type of approach is called crowd­sourcing, and we talk about it later in this book.

Establish a More-Effective and Coordinated Social Media Presence

The best way to get into social media is to start to participate (after creating a strategy and first listening for a while, of course!)

The best way to participate is to engage people one-on-one through active listening, rather than pushing advertising messages at them.

This strategy involves building on any existing enterprise social media assets such as customer stories and testimonials, YouTube videos, Twitter accounts and other sites. Create presences on popular social networking sites as well as engag­ing with those who are already using social media to discuss your products and your business.

All these efforts should be coordinated, and revolve around the talking points. Consider creating a branded social net­working site that enables user-generated content, either stand­alone or as part of your organization’s site. You should recognize, however, that this is a substantial undertaking. We talk about architecting your own community in the section Building Your Community.

Capitalize on Existing Relationships

Ensure that all stakeholders whom the enterprise touches reg­ularly — your organization’s sales and marketing folks as well as customer service and product management — are kept up-to-date via social media and other means.

This means leveraging any existing Internet assets such as email lists as well as other established marketing and public relations partners and also encouraging stakeholders to reach out to those they can influence.

Leverage Traditional Media Resources

Fold the social media campaign in with traditional marketing efforts such as press releases and other media contacts. Ensure that the campaign’s brand is extended into traditional media. And remember: Don’t stop doing anything you’re already doing just because you’re now doing social media. Ensure that all your efforts reinforce one another.

Enable Direct Supporter Actions

Provide media assets such as videos, screensavers, and special badges[9] to evangelists and other supporters. This concept extends to all forms of user-generated content, including blogs/posts, audio, and especially email.

Up next: Create a Mobile Social Computing Strategy

[1] Just one example of the many articles and studies that support this: SocialTimes’ How to Connect With Your Employees Using Social Media, Email and Some Common Sensebit.ly/9o1vnP

[2] Fournaise Marketing Group, bit.ly/bAkvPe bit.ly/dmwcg9

[3] Exist.com: bit.ly/kj6p4l

[4] Produced by iPressroom, a hosted content management software platform, with support from the Public Relations Society of America: bit.ly/djp0cw

[5] Foremski’s Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die! bit.ly/nwPtwB

[6] MultiVu – SHIFT Communications Debuts First-Ever Template for “Social Media Press Release”: prn.to/pE7XNd

[7] Some Social Search Optimization resources: slidesha.re/dTdBDMslidesha.re/dQ68z3 slidesha.re/igunmG

[8] Crash the Superbowl: bit.ly/hAlYld

[9] See the definition of badges on page 20

[10] Source: Facebook on.fb.me/biGYNr

[11] Source: Facebook bit.ly/9fE4qn

[12] Facebook Mobile: on.fb.me/bpiCmQ

[13] Ground Truth is a mobile computing research firm: bit.ly/caaE65

[14] Ruder Finn is a public relations firm: bit.ly/djlLb8

Create an External Social Computing Strategy

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Create an External Social Computing Strategy

Create an External Social Computing Strategy is the ninth in a series of excerpts from our book, Be a Person: the Social Media Operating Manual for Enterprises. The book (itself part of a series for different audiences), is available in paper form at http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV


Social Computing Strategy
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Some rights reserved by Mike Sansone

Create an External Social Computing Strategy

Create an external strategy to:

  • Communicate with prospects and customers
  • Recruit new evangelists and influencers
  • Create a network of partners to multiply the effect of your own sales and marketing efforts

It is becoming well-accepted that today’s social-media-savvy users do not respond as readily as they once did to pushed marketing messages (TV, radio, newspapers, magazine ad­vertising).[2] Social media transforms an old sales platitude — “People do not like to be sold, but they love to buy” — into “People love buying from their friends. Make someone your friend and they will buy from you.”

The advertising industry knows this, according to the Chief Creative Officer of the world’s 4th largest ad agency, Craig Davis of J. Walter Thompson:

Audiences everywhere are tough. They don’t have time to be bored or brow-beaten by orthodox, old-fashioned advertising. We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in & be what people are interested in.[3]

So it’s likely that your average prospect is barraged daily with appeals and pitches, which they can become quite adept at ignoring. Social media, on the other hand, creates value by fos­ter­­ing a relationship with an organization and a brand, rather than creating another loud member of a clamoring crowd.

A social computing strategy has become a must, particularly for large enterprises, and incorporating social media into an organization’s overall strategy ensures that social media becomes an integrated driver of relationships, brand loyalty, and sales, rather than a less-effective afterthought.

Social Media Performance Group Approach

Our approach to creating a social computing strategic plan is designed to first and foremost integrate with your org­anization’s strategic goals. We believe attacking a point opportunity (“Let’s do some tweets about our new product”) or a tactical implementation (“Let’s drive traffic to our YouTube client testimonials”) without alignment with your enterprise’s strategy not only misses much of the value social media can bring to an organization, but also risks becoming counterproductive.

In addition, if all social media efforts are not coordinated with clear objectives and metrics, your organization runs the risk of wasting money and effort and losing effectiveness.

We lay out the elements of a successful approach to a social computing strategy in the sections that follow.

Review Business Strategy

As a first step, as we’ve indicated in previous sections, conduct a review of your enterprise’s strategy, goals, and im­ple­mentation plans to ensure alignment of the social media strategy. Next, work with your organization’s senior leaders to create an enterprise-wide strategic blueprint. Determine how social media will support your operations, employees, sales, service delivery, and so on.

During this process, you should examine all the potential social media touch points for your enterprise, both internally and externally. We suggest you look beyond the usual suspects when thinking about how social media can help your company.

Who are the usual suspects? Typically, the leading purveyors of social media solutions in businesses of all sizes are public relations and marketing, and it’s likely the same for your organization. The 2009 Digital Readiness Report,[4] found that PR and Marketing lead the vast majority of social media engagements inside businesses of all types and sizes:

  • In 51 percent of businesses, PR leads digital commun­ications compared to 40.5 percent where marketing leads
  • PR is responsible for blogging at 49 percent of all businesses vs. marketing’s 22 percent
  • PR is responsible for micro-blogging (think Twitter) at 52 percent of all businesses vs. 22 percent for marketing, for a combined 74 percent

We think this state of affairs misses the point of social media, which, for us, is about relationships between people, not pushing PR and marketing messages.

Social media expert and author David Meerman Scott says:

At every one of my speeches, I say PR people are spammers. That gets everyone’s attention so I have an opportunity to explain what I mean … I get several hundred unsolicited press releases and PR pitches every week. Well over 99% of them are not targeted to me, instead they are sent to me because I am on various PR people’s lists …

Scott is far from being alone in this situation. Way back in 2006,[5] writer Tom Foremski called for the death of the press release:

Press releases are nearly useless. They typically start with a tremendous amount of top-spin, they contain pat-on-the-back phrases and meaningless quotes. Often they will contain quotes from C-level executives praising their customer focus. They often contain praise from analysts, (who are almost always paid or have a customer relationship.) And so on…

Press releases are created by committees, edited by lawyers, and then sent out at great expense through Businesswire or PRnewswire to reach the digital and physical trash bins of tens of thousands of journalists.

This madness has to end. It is wasted time and effort by hundreds of thousands of professionals.

With all due respect to PR professionals, the typical public relations approach is to scatter a million seeds, hoping some will find fertile ground. From their perspective, this makes sense. From a recipient’s perspective, it doesn’t. Those who groan under the load of all the messages wonder why you don’t know them better. Why can’t you establish at least a profile, and at best a relationship, so you understand what they want and are interested in?

The answer is because public relations has never had a tool that enables relationships. They’ve got a seed-scatterer.

The cool thing is social media provides a better way: relationships not messages. The further cool thing is you’ve got people all over your organization who can create relationships. PR professional Todd Defren responded to Foremski’s cry to kill the PR by creating a template for a social media press release.[6] That’s a good start, but using this tool with a standard PR distribution system still misses the point.

Our point is that, no matter how enlightened they may be about social media, letting the PR and marketing folks in your enterprise dominate your social media use, might cause you to miss lots of places where social media can contribute to your organization, and as a result, you’ll scatter a lot of seeds on fallow ground.

Enterprises that have understood the real potential use social media inside and outside their organizations successfully. When we help enterprises realize the value of social media, we do this based on our proprietary Enterprise Social Media Framework™ (ESMF). The ESMF maps your organization’s structure to social media best practices and includes dozens of illustrative case studies pulled from the experiences of non-profit and for-profit organizations from all over the world. Insights derived from the ESMF help enterprises fully utilize the potential of social media.

Enterprise Social Media Framework Example

Figure 5 — A small section of the Case Studies area of SMPG’s ESMF

You can contact us if you’re interested in learning more about ESMF. Otherwise, take a look at what has been successful for enterprises like yours and think about how the advantages of social media can help you beyond PR and marketing.

Finally, decide which opportunities to address first, and de­velop implementation plans.

Comprehensive Strategic Approach

We propose that you take a comprehensive approach in which you:

  • Analyze the competition — Ensure that your enterprise is positioned to succeed against competitors’ efforts
  • Create a comprehensive social media strategy — Develop a social media strategy that is intimately bound to your objectives and current implementations
  • Create a social media tactical plan and structure— Be sure to iterate out all implementation details to create a turnkey social media infrastructure including:
    • A  community space on your organization’s Website where users can comment
    • A facility to capture client reviews, suggestions, and testimonials
    • Presence on all relevant social media sites along with tactical plans for using them
    • A model for involving partners in coordinating social media campaigns
    • Social media monitoring services
  • Ensure social media training for your enterprise — You’ll need to assess and train your organization as well as designating community manager(s) and others who will implement your tactics. If you’re interested, you can outsource ongoing community management and other social media execution to Social Media Performance Group, or we can train your staff to fulfill these functions.

Integrate Search with the Social Media Strategy

Social media must be integrated with Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts. Your enterprise may not be involved with such efforts at this point. That may be a mistake. SEM and SEO are critical to the success of any Website these days.

With recent moves by Google to index Facebook and Twitter, social media’s influence on online search is accelerating to the point that leading-edge firms are increasingly talking about a new term, Social Search Optimization (SSO). [7]

All your Websites should follow good Search Engine Optim­iz­ation processes, so you should review current prac­tices and determine how social media interacts with SEO.  Among the areas that you should address are page content, titles and metadata, content positioning, underlying codebase, site navigation, sitemap, and URL structure.

Create and implement a Social Search Optimization strategy, including identifying keywords and analyzing competitive sites.

Up next: Writing Your Social Media Strategy

 

[1] Just one example of the many articles and studies that support this: SocialTimes’ How to Connect With Your Employees Using Social Media, Email and Some Common Sensebit.ly/9o1vnP

[2] Fournaise Marketing Group, bit.ly/bAkvPe bit.ly/dmwcg9

[3] Exist.com: bit.ly/kj6p4l

[4] Produced by iPressroom, a hosted content management software platform, with support from the Public Relations Society of America: bit.ly/djp0cw

[5] Foremski’s Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die! bit.ly/nwPtwB

[6] MultiVu – SHIFT Communications Debuts First-Ever Template for “Social Media Press Release”: prn.to/pE7XNd

[7] Some Social Search Optimization resources: slidesha.re/dTdBDMslidesha.re/dQ68z3 slidesha.re/igunmG

[8] Crash the Superbowl: bit.ly/hAlYld

[9] See the definition of badges on page 20

[10] Source: Facebook on.fb.me/biGYNr

[11] Source: Facebook bit.ly/9fE4qn

[12] Facebook Mobile: on.fb.me/bpiCmQ

[13] Ground Truth is a mobile computing research firm: bit.ly/caaE65

[14] Ruder Finn is a public relations firm: bit.ly/djlLb8

Decide What Your Business Will Do About Social Computing, pt. 2

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Decide What Your Business Will Do About Social Computing, pt. 2

Decide What Your Business Will Do About Social Computing, pt. 2 is the seventh in a series of excerpts from our book, Be a Person: the Social Media Operating Manual for Enterprises. The book (itself part of a series for different audiences), is available in paper form at http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV


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Monitor Social Media

If you decide that you aren’t ready to engage with social computing but you can’t afford to ignore it, a low-risk option is to merely monitor what is being said about your enterprise online.

There are lots of free and paid options for monitoring social media and some of them are quite complex, allowing for the semi-automated determination of a concept called sentiment.

Sentiment generally measures how people who are talking about you online feel about you. Social monitoring tools can recognize angry, sad, positive, happy, and a variety of other sentiments by extracting terms from online text.

Monitoring of message texts and sentiment is a key com­ponent to measuring the effect of your social media efforts, and it can also help you get acclimated to listening to your community. We talk about this in greater detail in the sections Listen to Your Community and Measure Results.

We recommend that you start monitoring social media well in advance of any initial attempts to use it. Once you start listening, you may be surprised at what people are saying, both negative and positive.

One of the great things about social computing is you can potentially see everything people are saying about you online. One of the sobering things is you might not like what you see.

If you’re an organization of any size, you’ve had people bad-mouthing you for your entire existence. No business is perfect, and there are lots of people who do nothing but find fault. Before there was online, people were talking negatively about you, but you couldn’t always hear.

With social media, not only you can hear the bad things people are saying, you can respond and engage with the speakers.

Isn’t that great? We think that’s fantastic! For the first time in history, you have the opportunity to engage with your detractors, and perhaps change their minds or mitigate their effect. See a good example of how doing so can turn a negative into a positive in the section Engage and Clarify. Being able to answer your critics is an unprecedented advantage for your enterprise, and how you deal with it will be important for your success with social media.

We strongly recommend that if you cannot productively en­gage with naysayers, you should ignore them. If you engage with them in a non-productive way (denying their validity, calling them names), you can do way more harm than good.

If you’re just in monitoring mode, of course, you won’t start engaging; you’ll just be listening to what people say about you. You may be tempted to engage, but we recommend that you wait until you’ve listened for a while, and until you’ve got a plan for how to approach both the supporters and the detractors. Get your social computing strategy together first before engaging. It’s too risky to do otherwise.

What if you are listening and no one is talking about your business? How do you get them to start talking? Well, first you start by engaging with social media.

Engage with Social Media

Obviously, we think you should engage with social media, but only if your organizational assessment determines that you can make it a positive experience both for the enterprise and your stakeholders.

Josh Mendelsohn, Vice President of Chadwick Martin Bailey, sums it up nicely:

While social media is not the silver bullet that some pundits claim it to be, it is an extremely important and relatively low cost touch point that has a direct impact on sales and positive word of mouth.

Companies not actively engaging are missing a huge opportunity and are saying something to consumers —intentionally or unintentionally — about how willing they are to engage on consumers’ terms.[2]

Mendelsohn’s company surveyed 1,500 consumers and found those who are Facebook fans and Twitter followers of a brand are more likely to not only recommend, but also more likely to buy from those brands than they were before becoming fans/ followers.

So there are some pretty compelling reasons to get engaged.

If you’ve been through the assessments and caveats we’ve presented above, and you think you’re ready, then begin with an examination of your current organizational strategy, and fit your social computing strategy to it. The next section can help guide you in this process.

Next up: Create Social Computing Strategies

 

[1] Using Social Media to Listen to Consumers: bit.ly/bGFtdl

[2] Chadwick Martin Bailey is custom market research and consulting firm:  bit.ly/izHMWz


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First Steps Toward a Social Media Strategy

This is the fifth in a series of excerpts from our book, Be a Person: the Social Media Operating Manual for Enterprises. The book (itself part of a series for different audiences), is available in paper form at http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

See the previous posts What is Social Media?, Social Sites Defined, Why Social Media? and How is Social Media Relevant to Business?

First Steps Toward a Social Media Strategy

“Social Media Performance Group’s motto is: No Tools Before Rules.

We believe that before you use any powerful tool, you should not only find out its capabilities and dangers, but also create a plan for its use.
Beginning to use social media without a strategy would be like
tossing the keys of your SUV to your 10-year-old.”

Social Media Performance Group

The Social Media Performance Group strategy process begins with an enterprise social media readiness assessment. You need to understand how ready your staff, leadership, board, and other stakeholders are to make the changes that will be necessary to embrace social computing.

Although you may not realize it at the planning stage, success­fully implementing social media to support your strategies will require organizational changes, some large, some small, and some that may be upsetting or controversial. For example, if you’re a business that has a strict command and control hierarchy where every external communication is approved at a high level, you’ll need to change to be able to fully leverage social
media. The legal department of one enterprise we know recently approved 40 tweets. Yeah, that’ll work.

If the idea Be a Person scares you, you’ll need to do some organizational transformation before social media is right for you.

Of course, not all businesses are ready for social computing. In fact there are some who have ingrained styles and tendencies that will make
adopting social media impossible, if not actually detrimental. How can you tell if your business is one of them?


Top Ten Signs You Should Avoid Social Media

Lisa Barone, Chief Branding Officer of Outspoken Media, put together a somewhat humorous collection [1] of indicators of organizational dysfunction that would make adopting social computing a risky business. We’ve adapted and expanded them in the following list.

You have no social skills (and don’t want to fake them)

If your organization has problems relating with staff, customers, or other stakeholders, those problems are likely to be magnified by using social computing. Be honest with yourself when assessing your organiz­ation’s readiness to openly relate with a large group of your stakeholders.

You have no sense of humor/can’t handle criticism

A sense of humor often doesn’t make it onto the list of things to consider about social computing, but it should. If your organization gets stirred up by the least little bit of criticism, or has a habit of mis­interpreting humorous comments, think twice before adopting social media. Using social media means you are opening yourself up to unvarnished dialog with both your supporters and your detractors. If you don’t think you can handle it, social computing is not for you.

You’re going to forget about it in the morning

Social computing takes a commitment. It can’t be a start and stop kind of thing. Once you engage with your community, you aren’t going to be able to go back to ignoring them. So be sure you have a long-term, sustainable commitment to social computing before venturing forth.

Openness is a problem for you

This one is pretty much self-explanatory. If your org­an­iz­­ational style emphasizes secrecy, security, and a lack of sharing, you’re not going to succeed with social computing. Ask yourself what you’re hiding, and why, and whether you can open up before getting involved with social media.

You’re only there to sell

If you think social computing is just about selling, or marketing, or pushing messages into just another media channel, better to forget it. Remember that social media involves relationships and two-way conversation, and that you must respect your comm­unity’s point of view to be successful. You should also be wary if your leadership plans on having others masquerade as them online. Social media is about trans­parency, not facades.

You view social media as a numbers game

This is a common attitude toward social media. You see it on LinkedIn among the LIONs (There’s more on that in the What is a LinkedIn LION ™? section) The number of followers on social media is generally not what your business should concentrate on. The quality of your interactions with your community is vastly more important than the quantity.

You sometimes resort to name calling

We decided to edit this one. Barone’s original number 7 was: You’re inclined to call people’s wives “douchettes.” Apparently, a CEO actually did call some­one’s wife a douchette, [2] although not online. Nevertheless, if your business has folks in it who might be inclined to disparage others, think twice about bringing this sort of thing to social computing.

You think Twitter is a social media strategy

We hope you know by now that we think you shouldn’t get into social computing without first understanding how it can support your organization’s strategy, and without creating a social media strategy to guide your usage. There are lots of consultants out there that think putting together a Twitter campaign, or a Facebook page, or a few YouTube videos is a great way to get started with social media. Tell that to Motrin.

You don’t have a “social” culture

There are lots of signs of an anti-social-computing culture. The tendency to run everything by the lawyers. Endless rounds of revisions with final approval by top executives. A prohibition of social media site usage while at work. Blocking YouTube. Some of these tendencies can be overcome, and some might be enough to indicate problems with social computing acceptance. If your general organizational culture emphasizes tightly controlling the message, you’re not likely to succeed with social media.

You don’t have permission

In Barone’s list, this item refers to staff who attempt to speak for the business without authorization, but we turn this around a little bit to mean, “Can you give your stakeholders permission to represent your business?” When you think about it, your staff, customers, and other stakeholders DO represent your business, every day, and can work on your behalf. But it’s sometimes a hard step for an organization to let go enough to enable them to do the same on social media. Be sure you can let go before engaging with social media.


Do a Quick Survey of Your Stakeholders

To help determine if you’re ready for social media, a social computing assessment can identify those who will embrace social computing, and who will resist. It also helps identify those who are willing but need training on how to use social computing.

The assessment can be done online using the Social Media Performance Group’s free Social Media Readiness Survey™ [3] or via pen and paper using the version reproduced on page 55.

Do a Quick Survey of Your Customers

It is important to know what customers and prospects already know about social media so you can target your efforts to their ability to respond online. If your target audience is largely offline, you will want to use social media inside your company rather than externally.

It’s important to realize that, due to socio-economic diff­erences, many groups may not have regular access to social computing, which obviously can significantly alter your strategy in engaging them online. In your survey, you may want to segment prospects and customers by socio-economic status, which may affect how easily you can reach them via social media.

If your audience doesn’t have computer-based online access, you may be able to reach them online via their mobile phones. In this case, you should consider using the Social Media Performance Group’s free Mobile Social Media Use Survey. [4] The survey can also be found in the second part of the Social Media Performance Group Social Media Readiness Survey™, reproduced in the next section, and live at: bit.ly/smpgsurvey

After your survey is done, take a look at the results and divide the respondents into at least two groups: those who are likely to respond to social media, and those who probably won’t. You’ll need to base your social media plans on the com­position of these groups. If, for example, the non-social-media group represents the majority of your stakeholders, you may want to consider educational approaches to help them learn about the benefits of social media. On the other hand, if the social-media-using group is large, you may want to consider more-sophisticated approaches to identify and enable your supporters via social media.

Assess Related Businesses

Identify closely-related businesses and partners you deal with on a regular basis, especially those with similar or com­plementary missions, particularly in your region. Find out what they are doing with social media. Not only might this give you ideas for your own approach, you may be able to team up with them to help further your social media reach.

Up next: Decide What Your Business Will Do About Social Computing

Want to read the whole book? Order at http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson and save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

[1]
Outspoken Media provides online marketing services. Barone’s list is at: bit.ly/ctidjS

[2]
Hear the audio at: bit.ly/cymXi7

[3]
SMPG’s Social Media Readiness Survey: bit.ly/smpgsurvey

[4]
Social Media Performance Group’s Mobile Social Media Use Survey: bit.ly/c48q6

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Why Social Media?

This is the third in a series of excerpts from our book, Be a Person: the Social Media Operating Manual for Enterprises. The book (itself part of a series for different audiences), is available in paper form at http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson –  save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV

See the subsequent post, How is Social Media Relevant to Business?

“One of the things our grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we distinguish the digital from the real . . .

In the future that will become literally impossible.”

William Gibson, author

You’re reading this book because you’re at least curious about social media. You probably want to know why there’s such a fuss about it, and you’d like to find out if it can help your enterprise. We’ll get to all these topics, but first, why should you care at all about social media?

One reason is it is the fastest growing segment of the Internet, having overtaken online games and email as the most-used category of applications on the Internet.[1]

Think of how much you use email, and how much those around you use it. People are using social networking more often than they are using email.

In fact, here are some statistics on various social media properties:

YouTube is now 10 percent of all Internet traffic[2]

1.5 million blog posts per day (17 per second)[3]

YouTube & Wikipedia are among the top brands online[4]

Five of the top 10 Websites are social[5]

There are more than 152 million blogs[6]

More than 175,000 new blogs launch every day[7]

Not convinced yet? How about some more statistics?

  • One in four social network users knowingly follow brands, products or services on social networks. For those who use these sites and services
    several times per day, this figure increases to 43%.[8]
  • Americans spent an average 5 hours 35 minutes a month on social networking sites in 2009
  • If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s third largest,[9] with
    750 million people, having over­taken the US, at 308 million[10]
  • Facebook users shared 30 billion pieces of content (links, notes, photos, etc.) per month in 2010 [11]
  • Online communities are visited by 67 percent of the global online population, which numbered 1.8 billion at the end of 2009 [12]
  • Nearly two-thirds of US Internet users regularly use a social network (and almost two-thirds of all Americans are on the FTC’s no-call list!) [13]
  • Nielsen Netview found that in 2010 social media use by Americans dwarfed other online usage by more than two-to-one

US Monthly Time Spent Online Graph

Figure 1- Source: Nielsen Netview, June 2010[14]

Managed security company Network Box found in an April, 2010 survey[15] that
social media sites dom­inate Internet usage by businesses. According to the company, employees watching YouTube videos accounted for 10 percent of
all corporate bandwidth during Q1 2010 – up two percent over the previous quarter.

The top five bandwidth Websites, and the percentage of all bandwidth they used, were:

  • YouTube – 10
  • Facebook – 4.5
  • Windows Update – 3.3
  • Yimg (Yahoo Image Search) – 2.7
  • Google – 2.5

Business usage of YouTube and Facebook sucks up almost 15 percent of the average org­anization’s bandwidth! This brings us to another reason to be
interested in social media: It’s already here. Your enterprise is already dealing with its effects. You need to understand it, plan for it, and create
a social media strategy for your business, if only in self-defense.

And if that doesn’t do it for you, consider the fact that Amazon recently was granted a patent [16] for “A networked computer system [that] provides various services for
assisting users in locating, and establishing contact relationships with, other users,” – in other words, social networking. When the big boys get this
serious, you know something’s going on.

Next up: How is Social Media Relevant to Business?

Can’t wait for all the chapters? Buy Be a Person: The Enterprise Social Operating Manual and save $5 using Coupon Code 62YTRFCV .

[1]
Nielsen Online: bit.ly/bkJZvx

[2]
Source: Ellacoya Networks – bit.ly/8YKzTr

[3]
Source: Technorati – bit.ly/9eXgAj

[4]
Source: brandchannel.com – bit.ly/aMurzT

[5]
Source: Alexa – bit.ly/dzCkL5

[6]
Source: Blogpulse via Royal Pingdom: Internet 2010 in numbers: bit.ly/rk8vMB

[7]
Hmmm. Apparently Technorati said this as long ago as 2008, but this seems to be an accepted bit of Web lore at this point: a stat everybody
quotes, but has no findable source.

[8]
Edison Research and Arbitron The Social Habit II: Internet and Multimedia Study 2011: slidesha.re/oZ9JJB

[9]
For a light-hearted take on what this means, see: bit.ly/alnzw2

[11]
Royal Pingdom: Internet 2010 in numbers: bit.ly/rk8vMB

[13]
Nielsen, Social Networking’s New Global Footprint: bit.ly/lLH53L and Switched, FTC’s ‘Do Not Call’ List Hits 200-Million Mark, but Telemarketers Still Call: aol.it/lqY9Fh

[14]
Nielsen Netview: bit.ly/bkJZvx

[15]
Network Box survey: bit.ly/dBffUI

[16]
Amazon granted a social networking patent: bit.ly/cyB3p8

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8 Steps to Starting a Business Relationship Using Social Media

We’ve stressed in our books (http://bit.ly/OrderBeAPerson) and in our training that social media is all about relationships, not porting old-media tactics (advertising, marketing, promotion) to this new medium. The goal online is to create relationships and Be a Person.

So how do you get started using social media to create a business relationship? Well one way is to follow our 8-step process, detailed in the following.

1) Find Targets

Using LinkedIn as an a example, if you’re not already connected with the person, or already have a list of people you want to connect with, you start with targeting. Identify other users using LinkedIn search (limit: 100 results) or Google search (use site:linkedin.com). Pay attention to the keywords you use to narrow your search. If you pay for a premium LinkedIn account, you can really hone in on a particular group, such as vice presidents of engineering for Fortune 1000 biotechnology companies with fewer than 10,000 employees.

2) Learn About Your Targets

Once you find potential targets, study their profiles. If you’re a degree away, you might ask for an introduction, but you need a really good reason. I often do not pass on LinkedIn referral requests because I don’t want to endorse shallow requests. If you do go the referral route, be sure to give the referrer(s) a good reason to take your request seriously and a good reason why the target may be receptive to you.

3) Join Your Target’s LinkedIn Groups

As an alternative to getting referred, find out the LinkedIn groups your target belongs to and consider joining them. Follow the group discussion and if your target posts, comment on the post. Repeat.

You’re looking for some commonality and a reason to engage in a dialog. You’re building a relationship, so look for opportunities to give information or otherwise provide value.

4) Ask to Connect

Ideally, you’ll always have some interaction with the target before asking to connect. At the very least, become active in the group by posting questions, resources, and demonstrating your expertise. By this I don’t mean crowing about how your business is the best thing since sliced bread. Keep all comments non-salesy.

If the target doesn’t post in the LinkedIn Group, you can send a connection request specifying group membership, but that’s a cold call. Be sure to describe the reasons why you want to connect (not “I want to sell you something”). Never send the default LI invite unless you really know the person well!

5) Learn More About Your Target

Once you’re connected, watch your LinkedIn update stream for activity from your contact. Comment or like as appropriate. Your goal is to appear in their update stream, and attract their attention. Let them know you’re there, thinking of them, and contribute something of value. Repeat.

6) Ask Questions and Offer Assistance

After an appropriate length of time doing the above, message the person and ask them a leading question: What are you working on? How does <recent event> affect your job/business/organization? People love to talk about themselves, so get them talking.

If appropriate, suggest resources or solutions to their problems. You’re getting to know one another, so spend sufficient time in this stage. If you’re selling something or yourself, do not bring that up at this stage! It’s OK to describe what you do, but wait until the contact asks if possible, and don’t make it the focus of your interaction.

7) Coffee Shop Your Target

Finally you’re ready to suggest having coffee. Give a good reason to meet, beyond getting to know one another better. That reason should not be so you can sell something. It should be focused on your contact – “I’ve got some ideas about the problem you’re having. Shall we meet for coffee to discuss?”

Now you’re in the real world and all the good real world networking techniques come into play. But still don’t start selling. The rule of thumb in social media is to give four times before asking, but at this stage, you still aren’t ready to ask.

8 ) Know When to Ask (or Not to Ask)

At some point you’ll know when it may be time to ask. But it actually is better if you wait until your contact suggests you may be able to help.

Even if you feel it’s time to ask, don’t give them the hard sell. Don’t you hate it when a friend, family member or acquaintance puts the touch on you for some multi-level marketing scheme? Isn’t that awkward?

You’ll find that, if you’ve been getting better acquainted, it may have become obvious to your contact that you may have something they could use, and you may be surprised that they come to you with an opportunity. That happened to one of our partners who made a sale to a major multinational corporation that had previously told him his company was too small to work for them.

After following this process, his contact spontaneously said, “There’s a project starting that you guys would be perfect for. I’ll have someone give you a call.”

As IRL, So Online

Just as IRL (In Real Life) you wouldn’t walk up to a stranger and ask them for a favor, don’t do it online. Your objective in social media should be to build relationships, not push your message out to thousands of strangers.

Just as in your own life you are probably much more likely to act on a friend’s suggestion to see a movie, buy a certain car, or dine at a particular restaurant, so it is online. People hate being sold, but they love referrals from friends. Establish a community of friends, and your business opportunities will multiply.

We’d love to hear what you think in the comment area below.

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