By Linda Forrest
If there’s one sure way to turn prospects off, it’s to oversell. This is true in sales and in marketing. If you overhype something, you’re sure to disappoint. Case in point, last week’s iTunes announcement from Apple.
When Apple told the market that November 16 would be “a day you’ll never forget,” hopes were high. Would Apple announce that it had finally convinced the major record labels to play nice with one another and introduce a subscription-based approach to music downloads along the lines of what Netflix offers for movies? What could it be that would warrant such a bombastic statement? Surely, the announcement would have to change the face of music downloading forever in order to live up to the hype?
As everyone who is not living under a rock now knows, the announcement was the addition of the full Beatles catalogue to iTunes. As the surviving band members and their Apple Records label had resisted digital downloads for a long time, with a lawsuit or two along the way, this was big news for Apple. But “a day you’ll never forget”? Hardly. Actually, scratch that – it is a day I’ll never forget because I was heartily disappointed when the news didn’t live up to the hyperbole Apple had used to preview this announcement and a perfect example of the old adage “don’t believe the hype.”
While Apple is crowing about the 2 million songs downloaded in the first week, this seemingly impressive figure is modest when compared with the still-held U.S. sales record set by N’Sync in 2000 for albums sold, which was 2.42 million. In modern terms, country phenomenon Taylor Swift sold 279,000 digital copies of her full length album in the first week.
Not only was the addition of the Beatles catalogue to iTunes not a day that will enter the history books, but it hasn’t even performed that well. Sure it was a personal triumph for Steve Jobs, a huge Beatles fan who fought long and hard to get rights to offer the catalog, but it was the latest in a series of PR missteps for the company.
What can we as B2B tech marketers learn from Apple’s folly?
This is in fact a topic we’ve visited before. Way back in 2008, Leo called out Rogers for its hyperbolic ways and at the dawn of this blog, I wrote about how inmedia gets the best results for its clients when it presents information to the media in a definitive, easily understood way that doesn’t include spin or hyperbole. The same holds true today. Traditional media won’t tolerate it and social media definitely is suspicious of it, so you’ll be doing yourself and your clients a disservice by employing it.
B2B tech is famous for using egregious hyperbole in its marketing efforts. A recent howler from CIO documented the 10 most exaggerated tech terms, a list that included “leading vendor,” which is a battle we’ve fought more than once with clients. Leading how? If your news is indeed first, or better, or leading the market in some way, define your terms.
Ask any journalist and they’ll tell you that their garbage cans, virtual and otherwise, are filled with hyperbolic marketing material, which they didn’t read past the headline that overhyped the subject matter that followed unread. Don’t let your materials end up on the trash heap because you needlessly overdid it.
By Alexandra Reid
My colleague Linda turned me onto an excellent PR blog called the Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog where I now spend a considerable amount of time reading up on news, tips and opinions about our industry. Yesterday, while scrolling through the feed, I stumbled upon some astonishing news that LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner shared with the publication about his networking company. According to Weiner, LinkedIn “now has 85 million users – and the latest one million signed up within the last nine days.”
Holy Shnikes Batman! LinkedIn is growing…and fast!
Every second, LinkedIn adds a new user with about half of all new accounts being created outside North America. If you haven’t yet created a company profile for your business on LinkedIn, you’d better do it right now, or your competitors will beat you to the potential customers in your marketplace.
Setting up a company profile is relatively simple, and your business will reap multiple rewards ranging from improved customer relations to better SEO ranking and heightened brand awareness. The trick is putting in the time to do it right. The best way to promote your company on LinkedIn is by using all the tools available and regularly participating in active discussion forums on the platform.
Here at inmedia, we’ve now helped a few clients get properly set up on LinkedIn. Here’s a quick summary of our best-practices approach to doing so.
1. Be professional
Because LinkedIn is excellent for SEO, it is likely that your company profile will receive noticeably increased web traffic within the forum, through search engines and through your company website, if you chose to link to your company profile through a LinkedIn widget. For these reasons, it is imperative that your profile looks professional. We counsel our clients to keep the following factors in mind:
Company overview: Spend time brainstorming and writing your company overview to appeal to your intended LinkedIn audience. Your “about us” section from your website can be used as a good starting point but because LinkedIn is a social site, you should also consider using this space to explain your company from a different vantage point, namely the customer’s. While consistency and basic facts are important, you should hone in on why the person reading your profile should care about your products and services. Be personal and inviting as well as professional in your language use. Also note that there is a 200 minimum and 2,000 maximum character limit.
Company logo: Include one next to your company overview to help people recognize and remember your business. I’ve personally seen a number logos on company profiles that appear stretched and off-colour. You should use a picture-editing program to refine your logo before publishing it on your profile.
2. Research competitive specialties
Many LinkedIn users search for information by keyword. To improve your business’s results, your company profile should include well-researched and competitive specialties that reflect your business’s offerings. For example, if your business is in the manufacturing sector, include specialties that are specific to the type of manufacturing your business does, instead of simply listing “manufacturing,” a generic term that will put your business up against every other manufacturing business on LinkedIn. You should also note that although LinkedIn offers 20 spaces for specialties, there is a 256-character limit for the total number of specialties listed. Researching and developing such a list is a time-consuming undertaking that our clients have been happy to have us do for them.
3. Use LinkedIn aggregated data
LinkedIn can pull data about your business from all around the site, including key statistics, job listings and links to the profiles of all current and former employees, new hires and recent promotions. LinkedIn also analyzes businesses and the connections employees have on the network. For example, it will automatically calculate your business’s median age, top schools that most of your business’s employees attended, and other businesses to which it is well connected.
It is a good idea to include all aggregated information provided by LinkedIn on your company profile to encourage people to connect with you to ask about job opportunities, your business and industry information, among other inquiries. As your reputation grows on LinkedIn, more individuals will be inclined to engage with your business in Groups and Answers, discussed later in this post.
4. Make use of the new Products & Services feature
Earlier this month, LinkedIn unveiled the new Products & Services feature for company profiles to give members “rich, credible insights into how any given product (or service) is perceived by their fellow professionals.” Through this feature, professionals can make recommendations about your business’s products and services, which are showcased on your company profile. Each time a LinkedIn member endorses your products or services, their recommendation becomes visible to all of their connections and could spread virally. These recommendations can help promote your business and build its credibility.
6. Include the “Mentioned in the News” section
Mentions of your business in the news should be shared on the company profile to keep people informed of advancements and achievements. Sharing these stories of success will promote your business’s reputation as an industry leader and encourage people to connect with you for discussion and business opportunities. It is best to keep these headlines current and from third-party sources and ensure that there are no repeats.
7. Follow other companies
There is ample opportunity for your business to follow and be followed by partners, suppliers and customers on LinkedIn. Connecting with companies through following and being followed is beneficial to your business because it helps build rapport between industry members and shows others that you value community building.
8. Participate in Groups and Answers
Answers are active conversations on the platform about a particular issue. A question is posed and then users can respond and participate in the discussion. Asking and answering questions are good ways for you to attract professionals to your company profile, establish a thought-leadership position for your business and also keep a finger on the pulse of the industry.
Groups are also active conversations on the platform about particular issues. Professionals can ask questions, make statements or post content to drive discussions. Starting and participating in discussions are great ways to attract professionals to your company profile, engage with your marketplace and build an active network on the platform.
There are multiple reasons why getting your business on LinkedIn is important, now more than ever. What are your best practices for B2B companies interesting in getting onto LinkedIn?
By Leo Valiquette
“If you are going to have an online presence in 2010, you just have to be on Facebook,” a royal official on the staff of Queen Elizabeth II told the media recently.
Really. Why? When embarking on any kind of social media strategy, the rationalization for engaging with the online community must be a little more substantial than “because.”
For the Queen’s staff, however, this appears to be reason enough. The Royal Family already has accounts on Flickr, Twitter and YouTube to feed the appetites of monarchists and anglophiles everywhere, so why not Facebook too? Earlier this month, the Royal Family joined the legions of Facebook users with an account called The British Monarchy.
But let’s take step back for a moment and consider this brave and not so new world of social media. What is the essence of social media? What purpose is it intended to serve?
Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines “social media” as “forms of electronic communication (as web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos).”
The key word in that definition is “share.” This is nothing new, or innovative, or engaging about yet another website that is a one-way flow of communication. We’ve been there and have done that for almost 20 years. The Royal Family itself has had a website to serve this purpose since 1997.
So you could be forgiven for assuming that a monarchy often characterized as staid and dusty before the arrival of the next generation of royals has taken a leap forward in terms of finding a creative new way to engage with its fan base with Facebook. You would, however, be wrong.
Us common folk on Facebook cannot “friend” the Queen, poke her or send her messages. The British Monarchy, is, in truth, a glorified newsletter and calendar of royal events that completely contradicts the intention of Facebook and social media in general.
However, even a newsletter typically offers some kind of channel for reader feedback, but not The British Monarchy Facebook page.
It should not come as any surprise that within hours of this Facebook launch, anti-monarchist types got busy. Dozens of them clicked the “like” button to join discussions and then posted abusive messages about the Royal Family or called for the monarchy to be abolished.
How did the Queen’s staff react? Rather than initiate a dialogue on the relevance and value of the monarchy, as suggested by communications consultant and author Jeff Ansell in the Globe and Mail, they hit the delete button.
“When a company or organization tries to shut out social media, it speaks volumes. It dismisses comments and concerns raised by people with opinions and tells them loudly and clearly that it won’t put up with criticism,” Ansell said in the Globe. “For the Queen and her foray into Facebook, she might have been better off not even going there.”
Which strikes to the very heart of the issue. As we at inmedia counsel, pursuing a social media strategy, and deciding on which social media tools to put in the toolbox, begins with the same simple questions that apply to any kind of marketing activity:
- What does our organization want to achieve?
- Will this particular social media tool reach the people I want to reach?
- What is expected of us as an organization and a brand if we use a particular social media tool? How must we present ourselves?
The last point leads to the question to which the Queen’s handlers failed to give sufficient consideration:
- Can I effectively and consistently engage with my target audience in the manner they will expect with this social media tool? If not, then perhaps this is not for us.
Facebook, like any other social media channel, has its own codes of conduct, and while these may be more guidelines than actual rules, the point remains that Facebook is intended to be forum and catalyst for community conversation and sharing. For a major brand, and that is exactly what the Queen and the Royal Family are, it can be an excellent means to be part of the public discourse, proactively respond to criticism and steer things in a positive direction.
If the Queen’s handlers thought to achieve these goals with the public at large and convey the relevance and value of the monarchy, they have failed miserably. And if this was not their intention, then they simply do not understand what social media is all about. They’re still living in 1997.
By Alexandra Reid
It takes humans many years to learn the intricacies of how to be social. We are not born knowing that it’s inappropriate to put our elbows on the table at dinnertime, talk back to our elders or utter the word “neato” in any party setting, lest we set ourselves up for mocking. It takes a wealth of life experiences -some crushing, others passionate and a few victorious – as well as years of education to teach us about who we are and how we should interact with others in order to navigate our way through life.
Social media rose to prominence in just a few years. Yet, despite its rapid arrival, it has become a rich forum of experiences, thoughts, ideas, opinions and advice as many people learned very quickly how to transfer their life skills over to these online forums in order to develop genuine relationships with others.
Businesses as well as individuals are trying to establish a presence in social media. However, many of them are having a tough time building authentic relationships with their online audiences. Part of the reason could be that they’re not attributing an authentic voice to their avatars. It may also be because they’re only interested in getting fans, friends and followers in the most trivial sense. Or, perhaps it’s because people don’t respond well to brand promotion in their social spaces. To be successful in social media, you need to express the human side of your business and learn about the online communities within your marketplace.
The following best practices present you with an opportunity to make your business stand out from other businesses participating in social media.
Determine your goals
Being successful in life requires you to develop clear goals on what you aspire to achieve. The same idea can be applied to your business’s social media strategy. In order to know if you are achieving your goals, you need to decide exactly how you plan to measure success. What do you hope to get out of social media? Are your goals lead generation, brand awareness or customer service? How much time and money do you plan to invest in social media? All of these questions need to have definite answers before you begin your business’s social media activities. Agencies such as inmedia can help you ask and answer the right questions.
Develop your brand’s personality
It is important to decide how your business’s voice will sound online in order to ensure that your audience develops a positive relationship with your brand. This voice needs to be consistent, authentic and confident. Just as in life, being kind and polite are not requirements, but they certainly encourage good people to want to socialize with you. To maintain consistency in your voice, it’s a good idea to appoint one or just a few people either internal or external to your company to be this voice. inmedia has a community manager that can be this constant voice for your business.
Learn about your community by listening to them
Just as in any real life social situation, people are attracted to those who share a conversation. No one likes the guy who beats his chest, and only talks about himself. At the outset of your social media activity, you should actually do more listening than talking. You need to first determine your point of view and what you plan to contribute to the conversation. Then you can begin to learn about your audience. Determine the social media channels that you should use and design your sites according the audience you want to reach. You need to spend a lot of time listening to the communities in your marketplace within these forums to figure out exactly what they need and want. Once you figure out your point of view and the wants and needs of your online communities, you will be able to provide for them, and they will listen.
How about you? Do you make friends with robots, or do you prefer real people?
By Linda Forrest
Let’s face it: there’s a delicate balance between cool and commerce. New media arrived on the scene like an irreverent, insouciant prat, thumbing its nose at the “old” way of doing things, and this includes marketing. That new media would spell the end for traditional media has been a much ballyhooed topic these past few years. While the death of traditional media has been overstated, the adoption of so-called 2.0 communications modes certainly shook things up from a marketing perspective.
No longer are customers – whether B2B or B2C – content to have information solely pushed at them, rather they want to participate in the meaningful exchange of information and, in most instances, pull the relevant information to them. It’s up to marketers to make sure that the pertinent information is available on all channels that make sense, and to respond quickly to reputation-threatening information.
One thing that most definitely hasn’t changed is that businesses need to make money in order to survive. Twitter is no different.
Having survived for several years on no revenue, it was time for the company to fish or cut bait and so it took a page from its media predecessors and started to sell advertising. No longer was one’s Twitterstream the providence of the free-thinking and radical sticking it to the proverbial “man.” It became a marketing channel like any other, where companies, for the right price, could promote their Tweets to prospective customers.
While users might complain loudly about this interruption of their streams by corporate raiders, or roll their eyes at the suggestions for who to follow, Promoted Tweets represent a great opportunity for brands, and here’s why.
The recent noise level on Twitter reminds me of MP3.com in its heyday. It was a free-for-all where there was so much content and no way for content creators to effectively market their wares. As a result of the amplification of everything, it was very difficult for users to hear anything. With the adoption of a Promoted Tweets option, there’s a mechanism for brands to rise above the noise. The reputation management opportunities presented by Promoted Tweets are phenomenal.
Examine Twitter’s old way of doing things. Let’s say a brand experiences a potentially damaging incident that effects numerous consumers. The brand could issue a Tweet that suggests they’re working to rectify the problem, what reparations are underway, where users can seek more information, etc. Problem is, with no way to make those Tweets “stick” to the top of the Twitterstream, they can be quickly overtaken by user-generated Tweets with relevant keywords and hashtags that contain potentially negative and damaging information. With Promoted Tweets, brands willing to pay the associated price can control their messaging on the channel, at least to some degree.
In my personal opinion, the suggestions for who to follow, just anecdotally, don’t pass muster, at least yet. Safe to assume that I will never follow AT&T’s @shareatt. Ever. It really makes me wonder what I’ve ever Tweeted that got me put on that list…
Product placement, when done poorly, is hideous. Agreed. The same will be true on Twitter. Brands looking to use this advertising (and let’s not mince words; this is advertising) to its fullest potential, should, as with any other channel, use it wisely. Target relevant information to actual prospects and customers. Spamming will get you nowhere.
Many are quick to jump on this initiative as Twitter having “sold out” but it will be interesting to see if indeed this move will save or destroy Twitter in the long term. With consistent revenue coming in and with brands able to better use the channel as part of their marketing budgets, my money’s on save.
-
Four ways social media can benefit the B2B revenue cycle: part 2 of 2
November 11, 2010 by Alexandra Reid
By Alexandra Reid To everyone who stopped by on Tuesday to read part one of this series, welcome back. For those of you who are just jumping in, you can read part one here. In summary, I examined how social media could benefit the entire B2B revenue cycle by enabling businesses to attract and nurture […]
Read more... -
B2B marketing lessons from Jon Stewart
November 10, 2010 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest Comedian/talk show host Jon Stewart recently established his Bartlett’s entry in his closing speech at the Rally to Restore Sanity when he said “If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.” We as B2B marketers can take good counsel in the core message of this quote, even if his intention was to calm […]
Read more... -
-
Four ways social media can benefit the B2B revenue cycle: part 1 of 2
November 09, 2010 by Alexandra Reid
By Alexandra Reid As online activity rapidly moves towards social media, it seems that B2B is beginning to catch up with its B2C cousins in getting onboard. According to a Forrester study, 77 per cent of B2B technology decision-makers are now active in social media. With the immense opportunities that social media provides businesses for […]
Read more... -
The top five best practices of social media for business, part two of two
November 02, 2010 by Alexandra Reid
By Alexandra Reid In a previous post, I outlined the first three of the top five best practices of social media for business. In summary, it is important that you research and develop a social media strategy, dedicate enough time and resources and remember the three R’s: Respect, reflect and respond. In this post, I […]
Read more... -
-
The top five best practices of social media for business, part one of two
October 28, 2010 by Alexandra Reid
By Alexandra Reid Earlier this year, it was predicted that 2010 would be the year that social media goes mainstream for business. Nine months or so later, this statement has proved to be partially true. Companies both large and small have flocked to social media platforms as ways to engage online audiences, listen to their […]
Read more... -
Being busy is no excuse: Five ways any business can be successful with new media
October 18, 2010 by Alexandra Reid
By Alexandra Reid There is no doubt that the digitization of business has put enormous pressure on professionals to do increasingly more work in far less time. Adding just one more task to your already busy workday is seemingly impossible so certainly undertaking something as demanding as new media is completely out of the question, […]
Read more... -
-
How to bring new media channels into the PR fold
October 07, 2010 by Alexandra Reid
By Alexandra Reid The challenge of incorporating exciting new-media and social-media channels into traditional PR practices has been the subject of a great deal of debate in the PR industry and the source of a lot of consternation among clients. It has left a lot of people lost, confused and scrambling. For many, it’s as […]
Read more... -
Is “reality advertising” really a good thing?
September 27, 2010 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest I’m torn about Disney’s new “Let the Memories Begin” marketing initiative that utilizes real families’ photos and videos as a means to market their theme parks. Regular folk can upload their “memories” to be used royalty-free in any manner of marketing that Disney sees fit. Full disclosure, I’m a Disney nut. By […]
Read more... -
Twitter
Tweets by @FrancisMoranRecent Comments
The Future of A&R – Walabe : [...] http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/top-10-questions-every-strategic-communicator-should-ask... [...]
Traditional Marketing is Dead – Long Live Bikini Waxer Marketing | Scalexl : [...] pointed out by Alexandra Reid on the Francis Moran website content marketing is becoming more and more like journalism. So, it is not just about the content, [...]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]