Sadly this is a case of misunderstanding how to use Twitter and the value that can be added to any business through Social Media. I have commented before about the danger of advertising based posts on Social Media and this is a specific example of doing just that. To publish your business telephone number, or links to the company web-site alone on Twitter is not how to leverage the channel properly.

People who use Twitter every day do so as a part of ongoing conversations. Yet each of these conversations have relevance for business if you tap into them correctly. Twitter (and for that matter other Social Media channels) are all about communications, and most especially joining the conversation. Notice I said conversation. So for this hotel they should be searching for people who want information about their town and be involved in the conversation about visitors and their local city. Everyone knows who they are because their Twitter account will give all the relevant contact information.

What is there to see? Where should I go? How do I get to? Tell me about this local attraction? These are all topics that are open for discussion and it is important that this business be involved in that discussion. They should be providing valuable information that will entice a potential visitor to make the trip to their city. For the person to decide to stay at their hotel they must become the trusted expert.

Having a Blog is also another vital component of attaining success on Twitter. The blog gives you an opportunity to write beyond Twitter’s 140 character limit. You can write an article about each of the local attractions and who might enjoy them. Have the blog showing clearly the name of the business and contact points (eventhough the blog’s web site may have a name that does not directly relate to the business name). This way the blog will in and of itself build a following, in fact it may also be references as a local expert resource by other hotels. Have blog posts sent to Twitter and other Social Media channels automatically and you will be seen as contributing to the body of knowledge about your business.

For the hotel this provides them an opportunity to give local knowledge of some of the town’s attractions, which will help people decide to come to their town as well as their hotel. It proves they are local experts and have the visitor in mind when they come to the town. This is all about demonstrating expertise and building trust, which in the long run contributes to the revenue stream.

There are many similarities in how any business will use social platforms, yet there are many businesses that fail to understand how to interact on these social environments. All too many think of it as an instant opportunity for free advertising, yet this is possibly the last thing you should think about doing to improve the on-line visibility of your business. Sure you can give information about deals and discounts on a regular basis the way one of our local shopping malls does. Having a Social Media following is a critical part of having a successful on-line presence.

Social media environments are a place to discuss and inform, not to advertise. The distinction may seem like a fine line, but it is very real. It is acceptable for a shopping mall to tell its contacts about bargains being offered by stores through FourSquare but it is not appropriate for individual stores to be advertising their wares through Social Media. So what is a store permitted to contribute?

For a store selling leather goods they should give information about leather quality and what to look for in a good leather jacket. This information assists the customer in any choices they are thinking of making.

So how does a store provide information to its customers? Well a blog can certainly assist. So what information should be provided? Blogs should be informative and helpful in nature, whatever your line of business. If your marketplace is casual styled then the blog should follow suit. With a financial services type organisation then articles are likely to need to be more serious in nature. Therefore you should make your brand’s blog relevant to your audience.

In using Twitter the marketing executive from one of our local wineries suggested that there should be a ratio of eight general informative messages to one advertising styled message. General informative messages for this winery include discussions about what makes a good Pinot Noir or the floral design for a memorable corporate dinner. With such a contribution they relate generally to the area of expertise of the business or brand.

This ratio of informative messages to advertising communications of 8 to 1 is generally appropriate. I advise my clients that a ratio of 10 to 1 is what they should aim for and that it is better to give information than to advertise at any time, but ten to one is a convenient number to remember. and of course this excludes any ‘ReTweeting’ of information or replying to messages.

Becoming a social business is about being a business that cares about its clients even before they become customers. It is one of being seen as the people to trust in the marketplace and that relates to the quality of information being provided in the on-line world. Having a blog is a part of this effort, but not the whole of it – this must be combined with a Social Media presence. For a shopping mall then a location sensitive platform, like FourSquare, may be the best approach to publicise this, whereas other businesses are not so location sensitive and should therefor consider using platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, depending on the type of people that you need to connect with.

A while ago this site published a wish list of improvements that it felt could be made to Microsoft Outlook to equip it for identity management in the modern world. This particular article actually generated an email response from Microsoft suggesting the use of their Business Contact Manager add-on for Outlook. Since that time Microsoft has also released Outlook 2010. Yet neither of these solutions offered the support for extended identity information that should be necessary in managing our connections today.

Can we obtain identity information from social sites, like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. From some yes, others no – much actually depends on how the application is built. Facebook for example assumes we already know the person and have no need to retain an independent record of that person’s identity. Twitter holds some information, but does not provide access to their email address. LinkedIn enables us to download to Outlook (or any other software that can handle .VCF files) the person’s electronic business card. Plaxo, is actually a social capability that allows you to automatically backup you contact records.

Despite early attempts at electronic exchange of business cards the technology never really succeeded. So we give out, old fashioned, cards then go about transcribing them onto some form of electronic record. In actual fact a person’s identity is made up of a series of documents, tasks, emails, phone calls, etc. that form one part of the whole interaction we have with that individual. So If I sit down at my computer and search for “Paul Connolly” then I will find everything I have on file for him as well as any associated Internet based updates. Hmm, nice in theory but not always practical and thus we can see the card is merely the tip of the iceberg, and this does not even start to account to the heap of records the average corporation maintains about that individual.

Yet think about how many identity records you use on an average day and you will be surprised how many times you supply email addresses, usernames and passwords in order to access systems that we are entitled to use. Open IDs still have not gained as much ground as they ought to have. Is it because of a reluctance to make use of a single digital identity on the part of the user, or is it because of a lack of trust of the vendors? What is surprising is the number of Internet based applications that login using a Facebook account, perhaps this is the de-facto Open ID.

Facebook with nearly 500 million members is therefore reaching somewhere in the region 1 in 14 of the world is interesting because it is seen by many as trustworthy. Yet I cannot see LinkedIn allowing you to login using a Facebook ID. Yet there are now many marketing applications that leverage Facebook in order to perform marketing based activities. Perhaps the reason that you cannot download an email from Facebook actually works in its favour in putting marketer and customer together in a way that maintains separation and can be ignored by the user if they wish.

Privacy of contacts should be taken very seriously by corporations, yet social applications do allow marketers and prospects to mingle in the same space, albeit for a period of time, and that can be crucial, yet so is the need not to be making ‘advertising noise’ during that connection. This is one reason why the customer wishes to maintain a certain distance – and quite how much is of their choosing, not the marketing organisation.

For any business it is important to maintain as full a data set about customers and prospects as possible, even if you have no email address then skype ID, Facebook ID, LinkedIn ID etc may well be important facets which will need to be recorded. The earlier comments regarding the shortcomings of Microsoft Outlook remain valid even with the 2010 product. Social identities are as important (if not more-so then physical or email addresses) in order to keep an ongoing dialogue with that individual. The next generation of contact data that we store must be socially aware.

Once you take on managerial responsibility it is necessary for someone else to be given the detailed elements and for you to move on to other responsibilities. Yet that in itself can be quite a challenge. In a recently published article (Leadership and The Fine Art of Delegation) I stated “The art of delegation is largely about breaking each and every job into workable components and entrusting that a group of competent individuals will be able to complete the work”

Letting go of the details can be a difficult thing for any boss to do. We often try to do everything because we think that we are the only person to understand the full scope of the problem. This largely is about having a team that is motivated and goal driven. Sure every team has its arguments and petty jealous challenges and the new manager is less likely to spot them than the seasoned one.

In “Delegation: The Problem Solver Becoming The Manager” – I observed that the problem solver has a serious challenge as a manager “because their normal mode of work is to identify solutions, then shift gear and fix the problems”. as a manager they have to trust others to solve the problem that they have identified, eventhough they can possibly solve the problem much faster by themselves than delegating the problem. Yet delving in rarely makes this individual an effective manager.

Actually this can be an opportunity to put into place the right frameworks to resolve problems, something that you wished were in place before becoming a manager. This is about putting in place effective procedures that lets everyone know what is happening at the same time. This framework is a part of the challenge of moving the whole business forwards. The effective manager should think about empowering their staff in order to harness their strengths so that they can become the new problem solvers.

From a management perspective in order to become a better manager this usually means increasing your skills as a leader, coach, teacher and most importantly, a motivator. Few problem solvers think about these aspects when they are solving problems, yet they are powerful tools in the hand of the problem solving manager. Ultimately the manager must takes on this responsibility on behalf of their team in order to improve their effectiveness. In addition they must know what their limits are, know when to say NO!

one of the key elements here is that we all have to learn how to communicate better. This is an ongoing challenge that we must regularly focus on. It is perhaps one of the reasons that drove me to join Toatmasters; the perennial challenge of improving how to communicate. I never considered myself a bad communicator yet I knew there were areas that I needed to improve in. In reality communications will be one of the biggest challenges of our lives.

In reality we have to let go of one set of detailed problems in order to understand a new set of problems. The details and the challenge do change – we enhance our own capabilities and we grow.

I am not saying that she is wrong about the importance of web video, but I have always been a firm believer that each corporation will make the steps necessary to become involved in the social web at their own pace. Much of the urgency will depend on the type of industry that you are in; the more consumer facing you are the more likely it is necessary for your business to have a video presence on the web. If your business manufactures gas turbines for the oil industry then the need for video is not so urgent. Everything must be put into perspective, yet one thing is true each corporation should be considering using the social web in order to demonstrate their expertise and build trust in their eyes of there perspective customer.

That said the availability of web video as a marketing and educational tool is something every business should look at. On the whole though, to the uninitiated, web video sounds like another opportunity to post advertising for free, yet this is one idea you should remove  immediately from your mind. Whilst there is a place for advertising on the social web, video is not it (unless you intend to provide s sneak preview before it hits the TV screens).

Social video allows you to go beyond the advert; provide educational material for customers, explore the lives of the characters within your advert; provide an industrial insight about the processes you use; etc, etc.

Video clearly has a place as an educational tool. YouTube, with 1 billion videos viewed each month, is no longer the only source of video on the web. Facebook has recently added a video engine and the new Twitter interface also allows direct access to video. Vimeo is another video engine that is focused towards the needs of business.

Web video presence needs as much thought and planning as does defining a social media presence. Whilst it is important to be ahead of the competition, knowing that others in your industry are already using web video is no reason to panic and put amateurish video onto the web, after-all any fool can pick up a video camera and start shooting. What is important is understanding the process and giving due diligence to the process of building this presence.

One aspect that most marketing people will agree on us that most brands have a personality of their own; in this regard it is this personality that can come to life through the blog and all of the posts associated with it, just as it does with TV and radio advertisements. Most corporations own more than one brand or product, even for the  littlest of businesses. A key aspect of any business is the expression of personality through the brands it owns. Each brand name will tend to develop its own personality that can often be distinct from the overall image of the business. Here is an example:

* The corporation’s reputation is for building professional quality products at a cost effective price that the home enthusiast can enjoy, usually aimed at older professionals.

* For a new product line focused on teens and twenties needs to emphasise the fun aspects of the product without detracting from the company’s traditional values.

We can see that the focus is slightly modified for the new product which is focused on a slightly different marketplace. It becomes a sub-market all of its own. This new product needs a separate identity, indeed each brand should have a distinct look and feel. How this relates to blogging is a part of activating the personality on behalf of the product’s marketplace and the prospects who will buy the product. Advertising through media like TV, radio, and magazines also acts to build that personality, so what is said on a blog should always be consistent with it. Each product will have its own personality and should appeal to a specific audience and it is important to know that audience.

Having a blog gives the opportunity to go beyond the limits of traditional advertising; it allows us, the public, to know more or indeed to “live the adventure” associated with the brand image. Stories that help build that personality are an important part of the blog. Content can include any of:

* Behind the scenes looks or insider information.
* General stories of interest to this specific market.
* Adventures of… type stories
* How to articles.
* Best practices
* Competitive analysis
* Success stories
* Installation tips.
* Customer feedback
* Local interest.
* Personal views
* Food and drink reviews.

In fact what is most important is having a continuing flow of content. In the last paragraph the word ‘stories’ was chosen deliberately because not everything published on a blog has to be written, it can include pictures, video, audio clips, cartoons, and indeed anything that can be shown on the web. The key is providing regular and interesting material; all with well indexed keywords that allows your information to be accessed through search engines, like Google. When properly managed a blog can improve the ranking of your primary web site.

A local winery uses a blog to write a variety of articles about food and drink, which wines to use with which meal choices and other items of this nature. Most relate to the use of reds or whites, or review the essence of a good wine, few are specifically about their product, most are of general interest and promote the region’s wine offerings. Most  contributions come from employees across the company. Items from wine-makers, marketing people, and others in the organisation may all have some interest to the general public. They consider it important to educate the local community about wines in general. Through this work they are building a reputation as an expert in the industry and a company to trust.

Trust is an important aspect here; when looking at a web-site alone it is hard to distinguish between product offerings, with little to highlight the contribution that organisation makes to the community at large; this is where the business blog van make a huge difference. One significant role of having a blog is about building trust by the regular contributions made.

The other aspect that should be considered here is the brand having a Social Media presence which can bring visitors to your site. When used alongside a blog it becomes an important focus point for future articles; indeed the modern intervention is very multi-media in dimension

The speaker was referring to the fact that in her business there was no need to wait for their marketing communications to be approved. Large corporations often need to decide everything by committee, which can certainly make them seem less responsive in any situation. Small business can often seem more agile or responsive in a lot of areas, in particular publicity and customer communications. This usually shows as a friendlier face to the customer, indeed it is more likely to engender trust within any relationship. However the relationship is also more likely to be a face-to-face one rather than an on-line one.

The net effect tends to be that the customer will envision small business as been best at championing their requirements and dealing with their issues. However when small business grows to a certain size there is a danger that its people will forget their prior approach and start acting the same as traditional big business. At the same time there is a distinct danger of losing a personal and caring touch that was a key part of their growth.

Can we define a general rule of that as business grows they must change the way they act to the customer? Corporations such as Amazon and Ebay were all once small businesses with an excellent customer service reputation, yet today each has been accused of not caring about their customer, indeed speaking to a person can often be a challenge. On the social media front many large corporations are not active, or merely have a presence that is about pushing advertising messages and have no interest in listening to customers or prospects and their problems. Despite this it is certainly possible to see examples of large corporations that proudly demonstrate a caring attitude, this can be seen in corporations like Apple, Jet Blue, and Dell. So clearly large businesses can be responsive to their customer needs as well, if they choose to be; it is a matter of strategy.

Social media, when used for any business, largely relates to building a relationship that is based on trust. This is one area that can be quite complex. We have seen many fly-by-night plumbers that act unprofessionally, provide no guarantees, and just patch a problem, lasting just long enough for them to disappear into the sunset. Yet in many countries legal rules have clamped down on this type of behaviour, and have introduced professional standards. Yet professionalism goes beyond the work dome for money, sometimes it involves solving a customer’s problem without generating an income. Implicitly Small business seems to recognise that not everything is about money, yet they have more to lose from doing free work. This media makes it possible to solve another person’s problem without too much thought; answer a question asked may take the business person five minutes but this contribution can resolve many other peoples problems at the same time.

Twitter Tip:

With Twitter it is possible to answer a question in 140 characters if words are carefully chosen. Often more detail is required though. This is where it is recommended that you write a blog post that responds to the question. You may be addressing one problem, yet generalize the answer and others can then make use of it in the future, and can provide you with a link to use when answering future questions. Also blog posts like ‘101 alternative ways to use widget X’ grab more people’s attention because it keeps a well known product in the public eye.

LinkedIn Tip:

Questions and answers as a key aspect of the LinkedIn network and will certainly endear you to other members of the site. You should answer questions in your field of expertise, be frank and honest and base your answers on your own experience. You have significantly more room here to develop a line of thought than with Twitter, but again links out to blog posts are often useful in adding value to the reader.

Generally all businesses should have a blog linked to their web site as it will add extra depth to their brand and professional image. Most web sites tends to remain static and factual about the products or services offered – after-all the site is there to directly or indirectly sell a product or service. The blog can offer so much more. It is a dynamic view, providing new information and will generally be based on personal experiences and how particular problems were solved. This is important, because individual viewpoints add credence to the corporate position on any subject

Having recently talked to a guest house owner about blogging they were naturally curious about how often they should post new material. Overall there is no particular limit, generally once a week is a good minimum standard. Remember though that the quality of the material posted is perhaps more important than frequency. The guest house has a problem in that the very time he needs to be writing posts is the very time that he needs to be attending to his customer needs; e.g. during the holiday season. They can perhaps use the lean periods of the year to write their material, leave it unpublished, then publish it at the appropriate time (with a quick check to ensure the content is still relevant).

With any blog the article writer is best advised to write articles of general interest to their area of expertise, for the guest house owner this is likely to be a review of local arts festivals, the local sights and museums, all of which can add relevance to any visitors stay. Further information will be added about blogging for corporations in a future

• Help someone each day, in some small way.
• Listen to what is happening in the community.
• When someone posts something of value tell others about it.
• Inject an element of fun into the contribution you make.
• Make relationships, don’t sell.
• Become a resource for others.
• Give, give, and give again.
• Make time for social media activity.
• Become a real member of the community.
• Let your personality shine through.
• Listen to the community.
• Add a little controversy, even if simply to get people thinking.
• Produce some content that other will appreciate.
• Share other people’s content.
• Link to other people’s content.
• Avoid automation, remember you are communicating to people.
• Be someone who another person will make a positive remark about.
• Help your friends and followers, then do it again.
• Never, ever, ever, be rude.
• Build a fresh and exciting bio.
• Contribute in a fresh and exciting way.
• Monitor what is being said about you.
• Thank people EVERY time they assist you.
• Ask questions.
• Answer questions.
• Don’t be another “me too”.
• Help others unconditionally.
• Know the conventions of the community.
• Have a unique and professional profile.
• Share your unique personality.
• Have a picture/avatar that appeals to your target audience.

There are probably 700 more tips that could be given but these seem to be the basic set that will lead to success.

Sadly there are many so-called ‘Social Media Marketing experts’ talking on this subject on a daily basis. The majority of these are merely advertising people who are simply advising businesses on how to leverage Social Media sites as a tool for traditional advertising. Lets be clear here – there is nothing wrong with leveraging the channel as an advertising mechanism. However advertising only has a tiny part to play in leveraging the Social Media Channel for business success. What is far more important is being involved in the ongoing dialogue. Therefore it is important to take a more holistic view in defining a strategy to manage your social media intervention.

One aspect of Peter Giblett’s new book “Is your Business Ready for the Social Media Revolution?“, is moving away from advertising based marketing towards building a dialogue with customers, prospects and the industry at large.

There are three pillars to leveraging Social Media for business success:

• • Building a communication & collaborative capability
• • Intelligent intervention in the marketplace
• • Generating revenue as a trusted adviser

Some advertising specialists think only in terms of generating in income from this channel, but this approach will not ultimately lead to success. So lets look at each of these in turn.

Communications & Collaboration

The whole history of business involves communication, in-fact trade or barter may have been one of the reasons we humans learned to talk. Humans are adaptive creatures and new communications capabilities will always be arriving, in fact it seems to be a large part behind driving many technological advances. Today we face a changing world of business communications where everything is more rapid, in short bite sized chunks. We naturally want to be involved in a dialogue before we buy anything, the net result is that we want to be able to trust those products that we decide to purchase.

From a business standpoint part of that dialogue involves a wide range of people who are involved in getting any product to market. This more than ever before is a collaborative process. In the past collaboration has been about reaching out via email, we often forget to involve all the knowledge-holders within an organisation, let alone with suppliers, customers etc. Collaborative efforts have always been based on team membership.

The collaborative challenge today demands the involvement of a wider audience, including suppliers, customers, and other partners we are able to improve the level of communication and take appropriate action. Understanding that a customer’s business is closing early on Wednesday for a corporate event and keeping the trucking partner in the loop will ensure that deliveries are re-scheduled and arrive at an appropriate time for processing. Included are industry experts; don’t know the answer to a problem – look it up on-line or find an expert. Social media is bringing those experts closer to your business as a normal resource and in many cases without paying an exorbitant fee (although you should always expect to pay for valuable contributions).

The section “Invest On Relationships” discusses the value to be gained from improving collaboration within the workplace. Everyone has competencies they bring with them from either their social life or prior workplace. They have a sphere of collaboration, starting with themselves, expanding to the people they work with. This builds through teams and departments to the company as a whole. Each step potentially adds expertise. Ultimately it is the individual spheres of influence touch customers, suppliers, and third party partners with whom we are able to build a trusting relationship over time.

Intelligent Intervention

When people are talking about your brand your finger needs to be right on the pulse! The response needs to be immediate, proportionate and relevant.

Googling your brand or company should show your web-site to the top of the search results, but it is unlikely to show what someone just said about you on Twitter. Using traditional search engines it takes time and a lot of effort to discover what was said yesterday. A negative blog may take months to discover via traditional search. This is where it is important to build a social media intelligence capability. is about knowing what is being said about a product and having a plan to respond proportionately in any given situation. The triggers are questions about ‘What is being said about my organisation, my product, my competitors?’ To a large extent these are traditional market research questions, but we have never before had such a powerful view about people’s thinking. People are giving their views every day about topics that may have some relevance to your business. It is driven by what is important to people at a specific point in time.

In addition we can link this general knowledge with a knowledge of the views of customers, when retaining social media ID’s of customers when they make on-line comments (and remember there may be many). This information is closely allied to marketing intelligence.

Monitoring solutions are available that will automatically monitor the Internet buzz and throw up an alert when action is needed. Rewarding recommendations is a key. What do you do when an independent person spontaneously says something good about your product and company? At the very least it is important to thank them, one airline thanked a customer by giving a 25% discount on flights because of something said on Twitter.

Helping people with their problems is one of the best ways of intervening in the marketplace. Solving someone else’s problem will win you kudos, even if the person does not use your product. What happens next time they are looking to buy? You will be high on their wish list and possibly the only candidate.

Revenue Opportunity

Advertising on the Social Media channel will generate an income, but this will generally be at the same rate as advertising on the Internet. We may be able to tweak this a few points by focusing advertising campaigns towards specific demographic groups. But this is not where the real power of the medium lies. For business the Social Media channel is based on trust and expertise. You have to demonstrate expertise in order to build trust, and it is this that will ultimately bring revenue.

This is where leveraging this channel requires a shift in thinking. The marketing communication budget is not simply about advertising, it must now think about customer involvement. A corporation’s ability to leverage the Social Media channel to collaborate and be involved in the marketplace becomes important. It builds a revenue based on trust and expertise in specific areas.

A prospective customer who has found you through a specific Social Media is interested in the services that you have to offer, they will come to you because they already trust you and they are interested in your product. Hey isn’t this better than Yellow Pages?

The ROI of Social Media

Social Media can be viewed by many as the current must-have, but at what cost? Are corporations setting aside the ROI in order to jump start their enterprise social media presence?

It has been said that it is not possible to identify an ROI for collaborative improvements and that we only see the real improvements in the rear-view mirror. Yet defining an ROI for any project or proposed solution is about producing a best estimate at the time the need is perceived. That is as relevant for any Social Media project as it is for any other corporate change. Remember the major impact of social medial is more in the area of business than with the technology that underpins it.

The other aspect here is about contributing to an improvement in business results. This should be measurable through Business Intelligence. It is valid to measure the contribution made by Social Media to the bottom line. This must include a value for the collaborative effort, and for web intervention (including the real value from promotions offered). Spending should be appropriate, but will always be based on business drivers.

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This article is based on segments of Peter Giblett’s new book “Is your Business Ready? For the Social Media Revolution”. This book is now available on Amazon.

We will educate your executive team on how to build a corporate social media strategy. Our half-day seminars cost $500.00 CDN + Tax. Once you have a payment receipt please email to schedule a mutually acceptable appointment. Please note that outside the Greater Toronto area travel and accommodation expenses may apply. Cancellations will not be accepted, although appointments can be rescheduled upto 48 hours in advance.

This programs brings a down-to-earth understanding of how your business can leverage these new dynamic on-line channels. Social Media is about how we communicate and build trust. It is a new way of making connections that will soon impact every business on this planet

The seminar takes three hours and discusses the following topics:

• Understanding Social Media
• The challenges to leveraging Social Media in your business
• Why you should use Social Media for your business
• The Social Media landscape
• How to leverage the Social Media Channel for Business Success
• Defining a Social Media Strategy
• Collaboration – Building working relationships
• Image Management – Having your finger on the pulse
• The Revenue Opportunity – Trust based relationships
• Delivering value through Social Media

This seminar forms an executive briefing that will allow you to formulate a corporate social media strategy. Provided as a part of this seminar will be 3 copies of Peter B. Giblett’s book – Is your Business Ready for the Social Media Revolution?