Scripted corporate social media and social media gurus are starting to bug me
Back in April, Sir Martin Sorrell, head of WPP, the world’s largest marketing and communications group, voiced doubts about corporations using social networks…“…social media sites are less commercial phenomena, they are more personal phenomena, more similar to writing letters to our mothers than watching television. Invading these media with commercial messages might not be the right thing.”
A ZDNet article (that also quotes Sorrell) says that corporate social media use is not social at all because it is all about sales. As a real life example, the author describes the dinner party dynamic where “people will avoid that person that is selling something. Friends that invite their friends to tupperware parties, or multi-level marketing, are tolerated for a while, but not for long. Similarly, companies that use social media as sales media must understand there is a time and place for it, or they risk harming their brand.”
Separating sales from social media is a good idea. But in B2B, the line in the sand isn’t always clear because all media, including direct B2B selling, is social.
Sales has always been social. Making authentic connections is hard work. Getting on the phone and talking to people every day is social. But the funny thing is, I’ve never heard a single sales guy refer to himself as a ‘social selling guru.’
In Sir Martin’s big media/big brand world, “sales” is something you do to a person…no matter how much it hurts. In big media, social media gurus script and sculpt social media into sales media. The problems happen when hypercritical consumers with highly developed BS filters quickly cry foul on the thinly disguised sales media.
In the B2B world, audiences are a bit different. Sales are social. Sales is the fruit of a relationship cultivated by people being useful (and being at least mildly social) to other people.
Successful sales people know that demonstrating character, integrity and trust is the only way to find new customers. A sales person is judged and rewarded with new business based on his or her product knowledge, honesty, integrity and whether or not he or she acts in the best interest of her customers. Trust is built and established by individuals with individuals through repeat interaction.
Sir Martin’s concern about the intrusive role of sales media lies in the fact that you can’t script unscripted social interaction. Really being useful requires that the entire organization be present for more unscripted moments of usefulness – moments when customers could use some guidance, information or focused attention. The best sales people and the best companies have known this for years.
So that’s my rant. I’m sick of scripted sales media disguised as social media and I’m sick of the social media gurus doing the scripting.
Ten Signs of Cyber Abuse
How to Tell When Your Child is Being Bullied Online
Schaumburg, IL (August 24, 2010) — Did you know that more than half of America’s teens are exposed to cyber bullying? Studies show this form of abuse is growing at a very fast pace. Cyber bullying includes rumors, threats, gossip and humiliation and happens through e-mail, websites, blogs, chat rooms, text and instant messaging, and videos. Cyber bullying statistics point to devastating effects on victims, such as bad grades, emotional stress, depression, poor self-esteem, sleep disorders, headaches, stomach pains and in some cases, suicide. As your kids get ready to go back to school, now is the time to think about Internet safety and how to recognize the signs of cyber abuse.
As you check off items on your child’s school supply list, you should also be thinking about how to protect your child from what can happen on the Internet. “As technology advances and new forms of online social networking emerge, child safety on the Internet is of critical importance,” said David Barker, for TrueCare LLC – makers of Truecare.net – a social media monitoring service for parents. “We want parents to know that cyber bullying is very real, sometimes very subtle, and there are things you can do to help prevent it.”
Knowing the signs of cyber abuse is the first step. Here are 10 signs that your child might be a victim:
1. Your child becomes secretive about what they are doing online
2. Uses computers outside of home, such as at homes of friends, Internet cafes, or libraries
3. Has a sudden decline in homework or grades
4. Doesn’t feel well, headaches, stomach aches, nervousness
5. Is restless, has difficulty sleeping
6. Shows changes in behavior or has mood swings
7. Becomes withdrawn or displays low self-esteem
8. Does not want to go to school or socialize
9. Avoids telling you who their online friends are
10. No longer wants to use the computer or cell phone
TrueCare.net recommends that parents get involved and monitor their child’s online relationships. That they set rules and limits for using the internet and social networking sites, while reminding children that they trust them, but don’t trust the other people out there.
About TrueCare.net
TrueCare’s unique social media monitoring product was designed by parents as a way to effectively monitor their child’s online social networking activity without invading their child’s privacy. It is not easy to be a parent these days. The majority of teens now communicate via social networking sites. It is difficult to keep up with who your child is interacting with on these sites. TrueCare automatically tracks your child’s social networking sites – MySpace, Facebook and Twitter – for inappropriate content and sends you an e-mail alert in real-time when it finds something concerning.
For more information, visit www.truecare.net.
Press Contact
Ben Bradley
630-430-7267
ben@maconraine.com
A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week
General George S. Patton said it best, “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
Paul McCord’s new book “Bust Your Slump” takes General Patton’s advice and applies it to getting your sales back on track fast. His ideas aren’t new but this call to action makes huge sense for sales people that are not hitting their numbers.
In this quick and valuable read, McCord combines positive thinking, smart tactical activities and a pre-disposition for action into a short, easily readable set of 12 strategies that will improve your sales pipeline. You probably won’t have time to implement all 12 strategies. McCord advises you pick one or two strategies that fit what you sell and then EXECUTE.
The critical thing is that you are in a sales slump, you need to ACT and Act NOW.
Marketing and Sales freaks unite
The Grateful Dead were light years ahead of the concept of lead nurturing. In one of their early albums, they inserted the following message: “DEAD FREAKS UNITE. Who are you? Where are you? How are you? Send us your name and address and we’ll keep you informed.” The street address of the band’s office in San Rafael, Calif. was included in the message.
In that spirit…MARKETING AND SALES FREAKS UNITE. What’s on your mind? How are you? Who are you? Where are you?
Can you take a few minutes to respond to our B-to-B Sales and Marketing Snapshot: 2010?
Take the survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7NZMPVX
Macon Raine, in concert (no pun intended) with ZoomInfo, has created this survey to get a better handle on the alignment of sales and marketing.
We’re hopeful the responses will give us a sharper sense of the kind content we can provide that will help b-to-b sales and marketing pros perform their jobs better, grease the sales funnel, and, like, the Grateful Dead realized a long time ago, create life-time value with their customers. We’ll share the results in a few weeks.
To respond to the survey, please click http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7NZMPVX
Work harder not smarter?
Go ahead and slap your forehead in disbelief when I tell you this – it is hard to sell to someone unless you know who they are. Yet most of the sales people I talk to cries about the ugly state of their data. Most complain that they don’t have time to clean it.
Data, like unrefrigerated milk, goes bad fast. In fact, some pundits estimate that 25% of the database will sour within a year. Add poor import practices and other minor mistakes and bad things quickly snowball. It isn’t until senior management realizes they are making strategic decisions on the back of sub-par data that heads begin to roll.
Blame is a complicated thing. Do you yell at the person responsible for cleaning the data in use, the person responsible for preventing low quality data from getting into the system, the sales people for not updating contact info or the marketing department for not scrubbing the unworkable email addresses? Or should the executive team look in the mirror because clean data was not a strategic priority?
Some organizations try to fix the problem by assigning an intern to scrubbing the data instead of committing to a permanent process change. Others will look longingly for new gadgets, tools, hosted software, widgets, mobile apps or various marketing automation tools to fix the problem. These things can provide a wonderful shiny distraction and maybe an incredible technology advantage…but they are no substitute for permanent process change.
Need to rationalize it to upper management? The ROI for clean data is simple. All things being equal, a company with a larger database of clean prospects will close more business than a company with a smaller database of clean prospects.
Data quality is not a one-time event. Cleaning your data will cost money and so will the process improvements needed to support ongoing data quality.
But in the end it is worth it. Although the option to continue working harder not smarter is always appealing, a fast way to improve sales and marketing success is to fix things that can be fixed. Data quality is one of those things that can be fixed fast.
Creative fund-raising in a down economy
Bake sales may work for raising funds for your local school … but imagine selling vegetables from your garden to help support a hospital. That was the case in 1880 for Alexian Brothers Hospital after it opened in Chicago.
In fact, $15.34 was the revenue raised from the Alexian Brothers vegetable garden, along with $70.00 from the Strawberry Festival and $1085.10 from the Fair. That’s a far cry from what nonprofit based hospitals like Alexian Brothers Hospital Network are charged with today in their philanthropic efforts. With healthcare facilities in Arlington Heights, Elk Grove Village, and Hoffman Estates, Alexian Brothers Hospital Network and its Foundation now have lofty fund raising goals in the millions of dollars. And you can guess it has to be accomplished with much more than vegetable and strawberry sales.
Yet in today’s ailing economy, nonprofits like Alexian Brothers Foundation need to be creative when it comes to fundraising. One fund-raising tactic involved a little bit of “cat herding.” Alexian combined the contributions from three local companies – Teleformix (www.teleformix.com), United Marketing Group (www.unitedmarket.com) and DataCo Solutions (www.datacosolutions.com)- to create one platinum event sponsorship package worth $50,000.
For Alan Portelli, CEO of United Marketing Group, stepping up to help Alexian, even in a down economy, was, in his own words “a no-brainer.”
Portelli and his team toured the Alexian Brothers Center in Arlington Heights and realized they were “truly doing amazing work.”
It’s an inspiring business story that can lend a lesson to companies, big and small, that they can stand behind a cause and make a difference … even in an economy of cutbacks. The Alexian Brothers may have had to “beg” for $626.28 back in 1880, but today they are letting their outstanding work in caring for those in need do the talking.
One page strategic plan
A strategic plan has a better chance of being successful when it’s easy to understand, easy to find, and easy to share.
Here’s a great example from http://www.churchofcustomer.com/2009/12/how-to-create-a-1page-strategic-plan.html
Webinar – How to Drive Demand Generation with an Inbound, Social Media Strategy
Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 10am CT / 8am PT / 11am ET / 16.00 GMT
Presented by Marcus Tewksbury, Director of Alterian Customer Intelligence
Flip the funnel. Flatten the funnel. Get rid of the funnel! These aren’t some loony, fringe ideas, but rather the thinking of some of the leading marketing minds of our time like Godin, Meerman, and Brogan. Everyone recognizes that social media is having a huge impact on successful demand generation. The problem lies in identifying how to apply it to the greatest benefit.
Some argue that you should rely entirely upon social media. That if you position things properly you can just sit back and let the customers come to you. Well… I don’t know about you, but I don’t know of any salesman that’s made his numbers by sitting around and waiting for the phone to ring. As with all good things, and social media is a good thing, when done to excess it can be bad. Like Twinkies and margaritas.
When done right, however, social media can have a profound impact on your demand generation efforts. At a time when it’s getting a lot harder to fill the funnel with email blasts, PPC campaigns, and cold calling social media offers an alternative way to engage with your prospects and customers.
In this webinar Alterian will show you how to cost efficiently keep the top of your funnel primed using a repeatable 4 part framework that covers:
Be Interesting: How to understand your audience’s pains and crafting relevant, interesting stories
Be Accessible: How to use digital to be available at a place and time of the customers choosing
Be Findable: How to use SEO and tagging to get your message in front of high value prospects
Be Measurable: How to use asset and lead tracking to monetize the impact of your efforts
P.S. The registration URL is:
http://lfov.net/webrecorder/s?kid=57&cid=LF_82373698
TedXNaperville!
TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxNaperville, where x=independently organized TED event. At our TEDxNaperville event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group.
The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.
Ready to sign up to attend our event? You can register here:
http://tedxnaperville.com/Register/tabid/1878/Default.aspx
Defining requirements for a SharePoint RFP
Recent article published in BizTech titled: Defining Requirements for SharePoint Deployments. A short read for any business rolling out its first SharePoint implementation with recommendations for keeping the project from becoming overwhelming.
http://www.biztechmagazine.com/article.asp?item_id=660
