What is true is that no individual firm can hide behind an advertising campaign; remaining remote and untouchable anymore. The savvy buyer tends to go out in search of the truth, they use Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter and go search for anything you are considering purchasing and the advertising veneer comes off.

There is a massive difference between generating advertising imagery designed to build an interest and creating fake claims for your product that can never be reached. The world has been used to ad-men that make false claims about products and their capabilities. These are no longer acceptable in an interconnected world. Coke has always been the master of imagery and it it claimed that their advertising over the years has significantly impacted American culture; indeed it may have impacted world culture to some extent too, with the drink symbol being found even in the remotest parts of the world. Yet even one of its products “Vitaminwater” was recently involved in a controversy about misleading advertising claims. They have also reviewed their whole approach to digital based marketing when a campaign for another product through Facebook went off-track.

Every company will face challenges about their marketing approach from time to time what is key here is knowing what others are saying about your corporation and its products and responding appropriately. On the Internet it is possible to see the bare naked truth about everyone corporations and people alike. This should be no real surprise as once published on the web it tends to stay around for quite some time.

We live now in an era of increasing transparency. Information flows everywhere and at a faster speed than ever before. I know that as soon as I press “Publish” someone will read this article in New Zealand. The truth is there are no longer any barriers to the information we may use, true or not.

That in itself can be a challenge – lies tend to find a much wider audience than the truth. Anyone is prepared to believe a lie or controversy about a famous brand name, even if it is based on fantasy rather than the truth. Your buyer seeks the truth about your product or your business and using modern Internet tools they will find it, or at least a version they deem as true. We now live in a era where customers making false claims can be as damaging to a product as the advertisers doing it. It is up to the business to manage its online image and address that challenge.

Further reading:

* Closer to the Customer? Do we Really Understand their Needs?
* Does Business Require an Holistic Approach to Marketing?
* Relationship Based Business – How do you measure up?

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.

—————————-

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?

Being involved in the conversation, or our ability to communicate and collaborate, is of vital importance. This goes a long way to demonstrating expertise and is of vital importance for business involvement in this media. It is all about the ongoing conversation. Stevens makes the point the “It’s no use simply posting messages saying how wonderful your company is”, we should always look for ways to help solve someone else’s problem, it is what adds credence to your viewpoint enhances your credibility.

Responding to questions, and contributing to debates on professional materials in your area of expertise also enhances your personal brand.

Content is king and you always need to offer something useful, topical, and interesting. Blog posts have the added advantage of being referenced again in the future. Having the right balance between contributions on Social Media sites (such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing, and others) and adding blog posts needs to be met. Social media contributions tend to be short and sweet, like answering a LinkedIn question, yet a blog post can ofter provide the results of extended research or a more detailed view.

It is all a matter of balance. In the same regard comments can be one of the most valuable, yet underrated, contributions that can be made. Even if taking the opposing view it can always add to the debate and in itself gives support for the efforts of the original author. Stevens makes a valid point when contributing “don’t simply say ‘I agree’ or ‘This is rubbish’” provide a valuable contribution or take an alternative viewpoint.

Consistency is vital, it shows people that you are available and interested in the debate. Does that mean you need to be online 24*7? Certainly not! According to Stevens “Small, regular postings seem to be much more effective than rare long ones”. Real life frequently intervenes and we all have other priorities to manage, yet it is important to contribute and remain active. Pick the important elements that need to be worked on and spend a little time on those.

Think of your own personal branding in this regard as well. You will never be able to intervene with everything, but what you contribute to should be consistent with that brand.

Food for thought.

25% of the worlds population currently use the internet a massive 1.7 billion people.

The number of users has grown by 380% in the last ten years. The biggest growth areas being the Middle East, Africa, and South America, but growth is occurring everywhere.

0.001% of all information stored on the internet has any relevance to my current goals.

Unable to credit any specific person with this quote and as time goes on the number of zeros between the decimal point and the 1 continues to grow.

On-line advertising response rates are typically lower than 2%.

This is well known and advertisers often forget there are two types of web user the person who is focused on a goal and the casual surfer. The focused person is not interested in the advert irrespective of its relevance – to respond is an interruption. The casual surfer only responds if an advert is relevant.

Visitors make a decision in just eight seconds whether to remain on a web-site.

Marketing Sherpa have given us this gem in their Landing Page Handbook. I know from my own experience that there are some sites that I have visited where the stay is less than two seconds. So we had better make it interesting.

Looking for information, services or products, more than 80% of Internet users rely on search engines.

Naturally without a direct link to the important information we have to search.

85% of these searchers don’t click on sponsored or paid links.

Interesting, maybe people are less inclined to support advertising feeling that un-sponsored links represent a fairer viewpoint. 63% of links appearing at the top of search results get the majority of clicks. This demonstrates the importance of good search engine optimisation.

59.8% of men and 67.2% of women go on-line while they’re watching TV.

We humans are multi-tasking creatures. Have laptop will multi-task. How much is this driven by television advertising is not known or are we all looking up the biographies of the stars of the latest hit show?

China has the largest number of Internet users at 384 million.

Not bad for a country where democratic freedoms are limited. Yet plenty of sales opportunities do exist for the astute corporation.

Each of these has an impact if how we should be focusing many of our business development efforts.

We work with YOU to guarantee your business is ready to face the next generation of challenges. Not Social Media ready? We can make it happen!

This video is by Peter B. Giblett, Co-Founder and Chief Ideas Officer of P3 Social Media.

This presentation is designed to give you an overview of how to implement Social Media solutions that work for YOUR business.

Peter is a Senior Business and IT Executive with over 25 years experience delivering successful solutions. Contact him at peter.b.giblett@gmail.com or call in the office at 646 875 4556 (New York) and 905 371 3908 (Toronto).

From the ability to leverage Social Media as a Marketing and Customer Services tool that allows our business to communicate more effectively. The advantage of good business intelligence is in our ability to leverage the in broad based information set that we have about historical and present company performance, adding in future forecasts and an analytical capability to improve the decision making process. It does not stop their however because better decisions plus increasing efficiencies and our unique selling proposition give us a competitive advantage.

These are key business drivers. My personal background has always been intertwined with Business Intelligence, but am today building a new Social Media strategy company and we are directly involved with changing how corporations of various sizes are approaching this new Social Media.

On the cost effectiveness front most corporations have severely limited budgets, having to do more with less money so building new systems is for many simply out of the question. This is one area where most Social Media solutions bring good news, for most there is no massive systems deployment. In fact it is possible to leverage Social Media solutions with a zero systems outlay – that figure looks good on the spend side of any business. Yet there is a cost in leveraging Social Media, but it comes in other ways:

◊ Social Media advertising

◊ Person-Time  with corporate on-line intervention

Push advertising differs little on Social Media other than an improved ability to speak directly with your target audience. If you are selling shoes and your primary market is 16 to 30 year old women then Social Media advertising can focus on that group. Most of the existing sites can very effectively break down their membership and allow you access to your target audience. But you will not get an email address, you get access to their on-line presence.

On-line advertising has always been accompanied by a low click-rate. Social Media improved this because your message can be more focused for different groups, but you do have to remember that the message must fulfil their exact needs right now – “I have been looking for one of those…” otherwise people won’t even look at your advert. People have learned to tune-out on-line adverts at an early stage in their on-line life because most of the messages were not for them. The mentality still exists, but not people do spend a large amount of time in front of their trusted Social Media sites and messages can be present for more than the 30 second tv commercial.

One of the aspects business intelligence brings to this situation is the ability to measure the impact of our social media efforts. Visits to the corporate site can have a different entry point for social media than it does in a Google search. The actions can be measured, where they have been, what they have done, how long they stayed, etc.. Ultimately that intelligence can be fed-back into the knowledge cycle and allow the corporation to further refine its intervention.

Managing your on-line intervention is vital and this is where real gains can be made. Social Media is a two way street it involves both listening and intervening. Listening and understanding what is being said about our business is key. Listening and understanding applies to all types of businesses, but how? 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 your company or its brands and products on Twitter. Part of listening is being seen to be paying attention.

Being seen to be paying attention is a key aspect. In Social Media a listening corporation is one who responds to what is being said, even if this means taking one on the chin – admitting faults when they exist. We must of-course remember that some people have an axe to grind and few of our efforts will placate them. but at the end of the day it is important to be seen to respond in a reasonable manner. More so than ever before  everything that is said is available to 6 billion people across the planet – some right now they may care little about your product but people tend to have a long memory for problems. In this respect it may be better to admit the fault and update everyone on the progress of the replacement than go into a traditional denial mode.

The point here is that without a social media strategy your corporation will not know how to respond but with one the response can be timely, direct, and proportionate.

I knew this was going to be both a positive an exciting meeting. Of course I had already sent a copy of my earlier article “How to Leverage the Social Media Channel for Business Success” (although not in its finalised form as now appears on my website).

We talked for a while about improving communications and collaboration within the company and of course we talked about the many tools they used for communications today, so of course we came to the inevitable question “How does Social Media improve communications?” I love this question because it shows a desire to understand how to implement one of the core aspects of the new media.

Well Social Media allows any corporation, irrespective of its size to be involved in the world market for their specialist segment. Involvement in Social Media is about connecting to people and businesses. So who do you connect with? Customers, obviously as we wish to maintain and enhance our ongoing relationship with them, suppliers – likewise they are a vital part of our extended business realm. Prospects, of course, as we do wish to grow our business. Competitors – Excuse me, you cannot be serious? Of course we know the old maxim about holding your friends close, but your enemies closer – well it applies to Social Media as much as in any other medium.

However involvement in the medium is in itself not sufficient – it is important to have a strategy. Without a strategy your intervention is doomed to failure, somewhat akin to chasing the latest greatest gadget as there will always be another one coming very soon. Of course there is no problem with companies jumping onto Twitter just to try it out, but it is important to define what you wish to accomplish first, even if you are just defining one or two goals. If you are looking to drive additional sales for example how are you going to measure 1) the additional traffic, and 2) the sales uplift?

Taking a little time is important and will tend to accomplish much more. Dell has stated that their revenue based on their Twitter presence has led to a sales uplift of $2million. That is a sizeable claim and can be measured because new customers are directed to a location that will tag their session activity, which when resulting in a sale can be associated with Twitter. Now of course we cannot tell what was in the mind of the purchaser when they saw the Twitter posting, but nonetheless they will come.

“So you are talking about extending my advertising strategy?” asked my curious CEO. Well the answer of course is both yes and no. You can advertise in the various Social Media channels, like Facebook, MSN, or LinkedIn, and you can target your message so that it appeals to each demographic sector (e.g. one ad for teens and another for middle aged women) but that is not leveraging the real power of Social Media which is about creating a dialogue with those that can be interested in your business or its products/services.

Crucially involvement is more about communication and intervening in the chatter happening about your marketplace. There is no question that when people are talking about your products, your brands, your company then the business needs to be on the pulse and needs to responding appropriately. When people praise you it is always essential to thank them (you may also wish to consider asking to connect with them). Many times praise may extend as far as providing discount vouchers or other promotions.

When people criticise you it is even more essential to respond appropriately and in a timely manner, in fact intervention it is even more crucial at this time than when your business is being praised. The best tactic is to face the problem head-on, do not attempt to bribe them gifts and promotions tend to be seen as an attempt to bribe the critic to go away. It is better to try to create a dialogue with that person in private (either via a direct message or preferably via the phone), yet some people need their grievances to be aired in public so a genuine response is crucial.

We all all do things wrong from time to time and honest brings more kudos in Social Media land. Someone made the analogy that business relationships on Social Media are more akin to the personal relationship built with your corner store. When managed right it becomes a relationship of trust.

The other aspect of building an intervention strategy is in knowing what is being said about your marketplace. No matter your business there is already someone blogging , or using YouTube, or have created a podcast. You need to manage your digital footprint. You need to have a blog in addition to your website. The website is focused around selling your products or services whereas you blog is about adding value to the marketplace. The blog can have a multitude of articles, including how to use your products, installation advice, and other frequently asked questions as well as commentary on the marketplace, critiques of products etc. If you do decide to critique products then ensure you add links to web sites and be fair about the genuine state of the market. Also you should link to interesting articles by industry experts and future trends.

“You are telling us to change our whole marketing approach?” some pundits will claim that if people cannot find you online (especially in Social Media channels) then you are invisible. This is NOT true for every business, for some Yellow Pages is still an essential part of their promotional activities – where do you turn when you need Auto Repair Shop, or Lawyer? Yes Yellow pages! Yet Social Media can be a crucial differentiator. However once you have found a likely suspect (or three) then you may look them up on-line. The search engines (Goolge and Bing) are more likely to find you if you have a blog and a social media presence. This is where a balanced approach is required – one this is sure involvement in Social Media, provided these guidelines are followed will ensure that you do have both a favourable presence.

Further Reading:

Social Media for CEOs by Mitch Joel

Business Intelligence is traditionally capable of measuring business performance via a number of indicators. Traditionally the majority of these are financial indicators relate to the corporate balance sheet and are an indication of corporate performance. However many global corporations measure activities that have no immediate link to the balance sheet, such as production cycles. In the same way it is possible to measure the contribution made by Social Media to the business.

There are however several aspects that we do need to consider in looking at the value proposition made by Social Media to the business:

♦ The value of enhanced communications and collaboration.

♦ The ability to listen and understand what is being said about us.

♦ Responding appropriately to customers/prospects.

♦ Engaging the marketplace.

I have spoken much about the value to be gained from improving collaboration within the workplace. We have to consider that for every employee there is a sphere of influence radiating out from themselves through their team into the company at large an even influencing those outside the organisation. This collaborative sphere should be seen as one that adds value. However through the use of Social Media the company is investing in relationships. We must remember that collaboration is much more than communications it is about experts speaking up when appropriate. Experts can be found across the business in all roles, it may be as little as the truck driver who knows that customer deliveries must be delayed by half a day because the customer is closed due to a function, or it may be the analyst who discovers that two drivers have overlapping routes and that the delivery schedule can be rationalised and made more efficient.

Listening and understanding what is being said about our business is an important factor of Social Media. For example the music industry has always employed talent spotters on the street who are listening out to the youth to see who the latest upcoming artists are, yet this reach can only go so far. Social Media can add an extra dimension to this capability. Being in-tune with what is being discussed can allow a prospective talent to be identified without being in the locality.

Listening and understanding applies to all types of businesses, but how? 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 (like Google and Bing) takes time and a lot of effort to discover what was said yesterday, let alone an hour ago. The social media landscape is busy and plenty of noise so monitoring searches on Twitter can also waste time, a resource that is precious in any business. The challenge is to identify and hear the conversations happening on blogs, social networks, forums, news sites, and more. You will need a tool that allows you listen to millions of conversations in real-time without having to waste time. It is important to respond appropriately and the majority of the time a simple thank you goes a long way. Yet a person who starts a hate campaign against your product or company needs to be placated, or managed well before the press come knocking on the door.

As an aside it should be noted that Social Media is a two way street. Part of listening is being seen to be paying attention. If someone follows you then you should consider following them back – it is seen as being attentive to your audience. CNN has over 150,000 followers on Twitter yet the service only follows a handful of people. Following back is an essential part of being responsive. I am not saying you follow everyone blindly, again business guidelines are required here, but you should consider following competitors, customers, prospects and market experts at a minimum.

Responding appropriately is a vital component. Giving away a free flight because a passenger praised your airline’s check-in procedure may not be a proportionate response. These elements should be decided upon within the marketing department, yet be executed across the company.

Engaging the marketplace is perhaps the most important aspect that can win new business. In researching a talk I gave earlier this year on Social Media I saw how a Customer Services representative at Dell Computer answered a question on Twitter about when Windows 7 was planned to be released. This release date is now only days away, but at the time few people knew. Because Dell customer service answered the question they gained a friend in the overall PC user community, even if the person asking the question was not a Dell user they may consider Dell to be on the short-list for their next purchase. The expertise is not about answering questions on your product, or brand, but giving fair advice on your competitor’s products, and also responding to general discussions in the marketplace.

We should also remember that monitoring competitor information in Social Media is as simple as investigating your own performance. Here everything is open an visible to all. Social Media is full of opinions and counter-opinions, these change almost by the hour and can be influenced by a wealth of factors. If you are not monitoring your competitors they will be monitoring and measuring you.

Engaging the marketplace is about being seen as the expert, the ‘person’ everyone wants to listen too. This is about building trust, being the market expert. That is adding value to the business.

Business Intelligence is though about the ability to measure the value in the things that we do for the business. Normally BI measures $ value, $ costs. Social Media Intelligence is more a process of discovery of the things being talked about. Yet measurement is still important. It should be a valid business goal in real-time to track and measure campaigns, brands, products and sentiment (positive, negative or neutral), and provide additional context by analysing results over time, as well as comparisons with competitors.