Freesource Agent

Corporate blogging’s biggest challenge

March 8, 2010 – 7:14 pm | 235 views

At Freesource we get to work with clients on many different marketing-related issues but non may be as contentious as corporate blogging.

While blogging continues to grow in popularity with many industrial segments, others languish for a myriad of political reasons including:

Lack of understanding
Lack of perceived value
Insufficient resources
Unwieldy legal and political constraints
Uncertain direction and focus

The result may be a blog that provides a half-hearted effort at social media relevance or worse — a blog that is never updated at all, a virtual content tombstone that is a terrible reflection on your company. I mean if you can’t commit to a blog, how can you commit to a customer?

All of this points to an important point. What is the common theme between companies who can successfully blog and those that fail dramatically? I would suggest to you that it’s not ability, willingness or resources. It’s company culture.

Before you start a blog at your company … even if it is strategically the right thing to do … even if your competitors are doing it … even if marketing is screaming for it … you have to ask yourself: “Can our company culture support and sustain this?”

If putting your company out there in an an honest, engaging, content-rich platform like a blog goes against the natural grain of the company culture, short-term success may not be possible. And a blog is not going to change the culture. The culture is the culture.

It’s easy to come up with plans and ideas. It’s difficult to come up with ideas that really stick and make a difference. A lot of that depends on your ability to be an effective agent of change, and a lot of it depends on the inherent resistance within the company. You want your idea to stick, but realistically, unless you are a top executive in a position to really make deep culture change, you probably won’t be able to start and sustain a blog in a highly resistant culture.

What are the signs of a highly-resistant culture?

Hoping for a “grassroots” effort without executive sponsorship
Top executives unwilling to be personally involved in content planning and reader engagement
Influential executives actively lobbying against the effort
All content must go through unwieldy approvals (Legal, HR, etc.)

I know admitting failure before you even start seems negative and maybe even un-American, but it’s not a forever kind of decision. Priorities change. People retire. Blogs get a second chance.

The key idea is to do a brutally honest assessment before expending political capital on an effort that demands long-terms commitment and active executive involvement.

This is a very different type of management advice! What do you think about it?

By admin | Posted in Blogging, Business strategy | Comments (2)

Using LinkedIn Forums to Generate Sales Leads

March 3, 2010 – 10:44 am | 250 views

There are two distinct forums on LinkedIn, and what I am about to tell you is more that just uncovering the hidden Gems they offer, it is B2B social media strategy at it’s best. Bring your thinking cap, the second one might blow your mind. Here we go…

Gem number 1: Advanced Search, LinkedIn Answers

Fact: People are on LinkedIn asking about your products and services right now – why aren’t you answering them?

The strategy: Get your best man (or woman) on it. First, your champion(s) should have a profile that markets your company, links to your website, and delivers your message. Second, create a workflow/best practice on handling these leads.

Here is the play-by-play:

Search Only Open Questions > Use Layman’s keywords > Find the Question > Forward it to your champion (create the Pipline for him)

Example Best Practice for answering: Answer the question as best you can (don’t plug your company) > Link to your company (it’s an option) > Include a personal private note – that’s when you plug your company/get personal.

Gem number 2: Target Market in your Face (or email) through your Network & Groups – Automated

Fact: Your network on LinkedIn grows every time one of your groups adds a member, and ever time one of your connections adds a connection.

Wouldn’t you like to know when your target market’s decision maker becomes available to you? Especially if it’s through a meaningful relationship? It’s happening right now.

The Strategy: Every sales person needs to create targeted searches (using the Advanced People Search) for decision makers in their target industries, at their target company’s, etc. Once the perfect search/searches are created, they need to be refined down and SAVED – You’ll get weekly updates when that person joins your network linking you to their profile.

Here is the play-by-play:

Advanced People Search > Create the Search: use Boolean logic for decision makers (title: “Director OR Vice President OR…etc.), Refine all other categories, select only 1st & 2nd degree, and meaningful groups (i.e. Alumni Group) > View your results > Refine down as needed > Save the Search.

With the following in place, you’ll get a weekly email with links to the profiles of your target market as the enter your network – And you’re connected to him through a meaningful relationship.

How’s that for hidden Gems?

By admin | Posted in Free applications, Linked In strategies | Comments (0)

Hidden Marketing Gems of Facebook

February 24, 2010 – 12:04 pm | 67 views

This continues our series on some of the lesser known (but USEFUL!) tricks and apps on the social web. Today easy Facebook page creation!

Static FBML Application– This little gem lets you create custom tabs and content for your Facebook Fan Page using basic HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup language).

This is a cost and time saving alternative if you think you need your own application for Facebook. The FBML Application Page itself doesn’t do a good job selling or describing the app, but there are lots of great examples (and articles) of Fan Pages that have done this well.

Here is a supporting article and shining Fan Page example:

Static FBML – Not every Fan Page needs an Application

Breast Cancer Awareness Fan Page

By admin | Posted in Free applications | Comments (0)

What this world needs is a Google store

February 17, 2010 – 5:25 am | 232 views

It seems that Google has been in the news every day with a new business deal, partnership or product offering. They’ve created a lot of Buzz … literally. That’s all well and good. But what I really want to see is a Google Store.

I can’t think of anything more useful or fun than what Google could put in a store. Just imagine!

Of course it would be decorated in primary colors and the store logo would morph according to the nearest obscure holiday. As you walk into the store, the shelves would arrange themselves by your interests and there would be little holographic ads following you everywhere … which you simply learn to ignore, of course.

Best of all, everything would be free. No … that’s so 2009. By the time the store opens, Google would certainly find a way that they could PAY you to come to the store and take their stuff away. Maybe all you would have to do is agree to have those holographic ads follow you home for a few days.

The only thing that might get on my nerves is that the service might almost be too good. I can imagine a conversation with a Google service agent going like this:

Me: Excuse me. Would I be allowed …

Google: Did you mean “aloud?”

Me: No, I want to know if I can browse …

Google: Did you mean “brows?”

Me: What?? Stop that.

Google: Did you mean “Stop gap?”

That could get annoying. Microsoft recently announced it would open retail stores to compete with Apple. I wonder what that experience woulos be like …

Me: I would like to see a demo of your new word processing software.

MS: You are requesting permission to see our software.

Me: Yes, I am.

MS: Will you permit me to receive permission to show you this demo?

Me: Of course!

MS: I am now wanting to give you a demonstration. Will you allow me to give you this demonstration?

Me: Get on with it!

MS: One moment while I re-start.

Well … maybe I’ll just shop from home.

By admin | Posted in Humor | Comments (0)

Creating a company of social influencers

February 15, 2010 – 9:19 am | 214 views

Over the last year or two there has been a ton of online chatter about identifying and leveraging your “organizational influencers” — there are even companies building automated monitoring systems to rank and identify important bloggers, followers and customers.

That’s all great… But don’t overlook what might amount to your biggest and most important group of online influencers (hint: it’s the people you pay hard cash to every week) — your employees!

Social media represents a powerful, simple, and effective opportunity to “light up” your employees’ personal brands, leverage their enthusiasm for your company, and capitalize on all of their past business relationships and successes.

Here are some ideas to turn your employees into effective online influencers:

Expectations– Engaging employees must start with a comprehensive social media strategy and a supporting policy. It’s unfair to turn people loose without defining expectations and guidelines. Be realistic. Create a program that honestly reflects your company’s cultural tolerance for employee involvement.

Education — Once you create a program, carefully and thoroughly teach people about it. For your organization to be successful in this new arena you must have a sustainable and scalable system for implementation, coaching, and best practices.

Deputize — Your social media strategy should be aligned with your overall business objectives. Find enthusiastic employees in the organization who really understand these goals, have a passion for the social web and use them to form a social media advisory committee.

Organize – If you are enlisting employees to represent your precious brand, consider creating a standard protocol for LinkedIn profile formats, consistent representation of company products, and other measures to create a uniform corporate look, feel and attitude without impinging on personal creativity. Create a plan to keep these employees in the loop on company information that can help them. This will do wonders for getting the word out about your company and will drive SEO for your company website.

Cooperative selling– Here is a big opportunity most companies completely miss. Why not tap into employee LinkedIn networks (and their network’s networks) to identify potential sales leads. Research shows these connections have a VERY high likelihood of actually being your target audience and employees are usually more than happy to help.

What other ideas do you have to turn your employees into social web influencers?

By admin | Posted in Business strategy, Sales strategy, Social Media Strategy | Comments (0)

Hidden Gems: Twellow

February 9, 2010 – 8:50 am | 162 views

This is the second in a series of the social web’s Hidden Gems and today we’re covering a service called Twellow.

This is a very useful FREE application, especially if you or a client is just getting started on Twitter. Twellow can help you identify targeted people to follow, either by industry category, interest, or geographical location. it’s like the Yellow pages for Twitter … hence the name “Twellow.”

You can log-in to Twellow using your Twitter ID and password. You’ll want to do this right at the start because it allows you to follow new people directly from this application. Inexplicably, the log-in button is very difficult to see, stashed in the upper right-hand corner of the site.

The front page of Twellow provides lists and lists of Twitter users categorized by every occupation, interest and industry imaginable. Have fun finding people who share your interests, or who you think you can learn something from.

Here’s an important hint — Twellow lists people in each category by order of the people with the most followers. Think about your purpose. If you are trying to get these people to follow you, connecting with “rockstars” may not be the best option. Go down the list until you find people with less than 5,000 followers. They are more likely to follow you back … if that’s your goal. If you are connecting to learn, go ahead and follow anybody who interests you! Learning and sharing information is what this is all about!

Twellow has another important feature called “Twellowhood” that allows you to identify and follow users by geographic region. Right now the number of countries available is limited, but they say they have an intent to expand.

To use this for the U.S., for example, click on the country and then the state. A list of available cities pops up. This is an invaluable tool if you are trying to connect with people in a limited geographic area.

Finally, don’t be forget to add yourself to the Twellow directory. Be selective — you can only add your name to a total of 10 categories.

What apps have you found useful when getting started on Twitter?

Others in this series: Hidden Gems of LinkedIn

By admin | Posted in Free applications, Social Media Strategy, twitter | Comments (1)

“Historic” take on password security

February 8, 2010 – 8:38 am | 100 views

Michael Selisson brought this great movie clip to our attention. Thought Monday morning was as good as any time for a laugh. Here’s the Marx Brothers’ take on password security from the film “HorseFeathers.”

By admin | Posted in Humor | Comments (0)

New CMO practices what he preaches about the social web

February 2, 2010 – 12:02 am | 47 views

We would like to welcome and introduce Mark W. Schaefer, Freesource’s new Chief Marketing Officer. Mark is a richly-talented marketing veteran and educator who has been an important Freesource collaborator. Mark recently described his journey with Freesource on his popular marketing blog {grow} and we’re pleased to re-publish it here as an illustration of how the social web works to bring people together in amazing ways!

Sometimes the social web works in the most unexpected ways. For example, can you imagine being named CMO of a company … without ever meeting the boss?

About a year ago I saw notice on a LinkedIn Group that the American Marketing Association was offering a webinar on using the social web to make your business more efficient. The presenter was a guy named Nathan Egan, a former LinkedIn exec who had just started a company called Freesource. The price was right — free — so I attended. Nathan seemed like a bright guy and at the end of the webinar, he invited the participants to follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn, so I did.

Getting on the radar

Through Twitter, I appeared on Nathan’s radar and he began reading my blog. The topics I wrote about resonated with him, and, like many readers of {grow}, one day he called me to talk through some of his business problems. We continued to support each other and toss ideas around over a period of months.

Nathan assembled a great team and Freesource grew quickly as businesses sought the company’s advice on using the social web to make their businesses more productive and efficient. As the client base grew, he needed a wide variety of resources to support projects, and, since I can do a wide variety of things, I seemed to fit the bill! Nathan began sending me paid assignments to fill in the many white spaces of a start-up company.

I loved the work because our views on business and marketing were aligned and I absolutely bought into his vision of how the new media could work for a corporation. As Nathan’s trust in me grew, he provided more important, strategic assignments.

Freesource quickly became one of the largest and most respected social media marketing agencies in the country. Nathan no longer had time to work on the critical marketing functions of his company and asked me if I could help. I recently agreed to become CMO on a part-time basis and help him through this exciting growth phase.

The success formula

This is a good time to reflect on that important formula I introduced a few months ago:

Connections + Meaningful content + Authentic helpfulness = Business benefits

How this worked in the real world:

I was active on LinkedIn and established relevant new business connections.
By providing meaningful content through Twitter, I appeared on Nathan’s radar screen. Ideas from my blog grabbed his attention.
We offered authentic helpfulness to each other without regard of any future “pay-back.” This built trust and a dialogue that led to a mutually-beneficial business partnership.

The more I’ve studied success stories in the social media space, the more I am convinced that this formula really does work. This week, I’ll share a couple other examples to show how.

How does this fit with your own experiences on the social web?

By admin | Posted in Business strategy | Tagged Freesource Agency, linkedin, Nathan Egan, social influence marketing | Comments (0)

The weakest link – password security

February 1, 2010 – 12:02 am | 56 views

cyber_crime Can you imagine what would happen if your corporate Twitter account with thousands of followers got hacked? What if your company’s Facebook page was wiped out or your corporate blogger went crazy and started slamming your company? How can you regain control?

Unfortunately these events are happening more often than you think and the reason is actually quite simple: lack of corporate policy when managing passwords for platforms that are “outside” the traditional company firewall.

So how do you keep your company’s social media passwords safe?

Use VERY strong passwords — A combination of numbers, symbols, upper and lower case letters that exceeds seven digits is the strongest combination for any password. Try using a word that is easy to remember in which letters can be replaced by numbers and symbols. For example, with the word “replicate” – you can change that to “R-e-p-1-I-c-@-t-e”.

Make re-setting passwords a habit — The same logic behind your IT department’s policy to automatically force server users to reset their passwords every several months can serve as a reminder for employees to reset their social media account passwords as well.

Grant Dual-Access and Create a Master Password Directory — Every time you set up a new social media presence (i.e. Facebook Fanpage, Twitter handle, etc) make sure the password and user names are being logged in a master file for your social media advisory board. Many sites also allow for multiple users to be administrators!

Use extreme caution when installing third party applications — Apps that require your password are becoming more and more popular these days. These programs represent a serious threat to your brand as you have essentially given your password to someone or some company you REALLY don’t know. Even if their intent is good in nature, they may not have the security to prevent their systems from being hacked… bye bye passwords!

Have an action team and a plan in place — Sometimes just having an informal plan in place can be the difference between a near-miss and total catastrophe. Run a drill. What would you do if your Twitter account was hacked right now? Do you have a plan? Do you have a response team in place? Do you have a list of contacts at Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc that you could call in an emergency?

Every social media site has its own set of password security issues. Be very aware of them and you can keep your company safe. If you would like to learn more about password security, contact us.

By admin | Posted in Business strategy | Tagged Corporate Liablity, corporate policy, Personal Safety, privacy | Comments (1)

Hidden Gems of the Social Web Part 1: LinkedIn

January 28, 2010 – 12:12 am | 64 views

Sifting through the complexities of social networks can be difficult, but sometimes you can find “hidden gems.” We’re beginning a series on social media hidden gems beginning with LinkedIn. Hope you enjoy it!

Gem Number 1: Mine the companies in your network

Just like the people in your network (1st & 2nd degree connections) LinkedIn lets you view the companies in your network. If your personal network is at least 50 first degree connections, you should have access to view 100,000 companies you’re connected to either directly, or through the people you know.

>>> Directions: Select “Companies” from the drop-down menu > leave the search field blank > Search.

The gem only gets better – refine by industry, size, or just flip through until you find that company you’ve been dying to get into.

Gem Number 2: Forward Profiles

LinkedIn for collaboration? Yup, but not the time-consuming kind.

Hiring? – Forward the profile of a candidate around your team/to your hiring manager and start a thread.

Selling? Forward profiles of prospects (or customers) around your team.

>>> Directions: Go to any profile on LinkedIn > in the upper right corner > Forward Profile to a Connection

Gem Number 3: Boolean Search

Easily find decision makers (or whoever) in your network!

For this gem, I recommend targeting your search to only meaningful groups, like alumni groups, and sort based on relationship – i.e. 1st, 2nd degree connections. You’ll be surprised who you have access to.

>>> Directions: Go to the Advanced People Search > Go to “Title” > submit “Director OR Vice President OR Owner”

Others in this series:

Hidden Gems of the Social Web: Twellow

By admin | Posted in Business strategy, Free applications, Sales strategy | Tagged best practices, linkedin, web strategy | Comments (1)