Mike’s Points

Questions are great. With questions — the right questions — you can communicate your opinion while also seeking input. Of course, if you’re conducting legit market research, you don’t want leading questions.

But, if you’re in an online or social media community manager-type role, questions are a great way to obtain community input and feedback while giving the individuals in your community the opportunity to be heard and make an impact.

I’ve said all along that, in social media, you need to buy into others’ ego and that inherent need we all have to feel important. If operated correctly, an online community allows just that — while still accomplishing marketing objectives.

While all social media is about community, there are, of course, more community-focused platforms than others: Twitter, Facebook, and discussion boards* to name a few. If you’re a business or association, your followers and fans usually have some connection to you, and have accepted the marketing side of your involvement on these platforms. So, a little promotion is expected — but don’t over do it.

Below are 10 questions a business or organization can ask to give individuals in your community a voice while obtaining valuable feedback — and spurring positive branding as well. These are general and should be customize to your particular business, product, service, offering or whatever you’re trying to sell. Please add any other types of questions or feedback you have in the comments.

1. Invite community members to submit a design using your product/service/logo/etc., and then periodically use a submission for your profile or account icon. It’s a great way to see how community members visualize your brand and what they associate it with.
2. What tips do you have to share with other community members — could be tied to Brand XYZ or in general? This type of question is good if you have a cleaning product, weight-managment product, or other item where people can share their expertise on a topic wrapped around your market focus.
3. What do like best about Brand XYZ?
4. What is your favorite flavor, type, variety, meal, etc.
5. When was your first experience with Brand XYZ? How or why did you first learn of us?
6. What are suggestions do you have for improving Brand XYZ, i.e., add or get new location, flavor, design, color, functionality, etc.?
7. What could we do to get you to visit or buy more of Brand XYZ? Of course, price is always a main consideration but other than price, what? If price is the only consideration, feel free to say so.
8. When do you use or visit Brand XYZ? Does your use tie in to a particular time of day, when you first awake or are working on something late at night, when you are celebrating something, etc.?
9. What memories do you have tied to Brand XYZ?
10. Is there anyone associated with Brand XYZ — an employee or even another community member — that you’d like to give a shout-out to, helped you, made an impact, etc.

Of course, these are general questions and, as I said above, should be customized to your product, service, organization or whatever you are trying to market.

For other online community resources, I encourage you check out and follow:

• Connie Bensen, well-known community strategist who current works at Alterian-Techrigy
• Amber Naslund, who is director of community for Radian6
• Mashable’s 10 Rules for Increasing Community Engagement
• Chris Brogan’s Essential Skills for a Community Manager

Thank you!

-Mike

*On many discussion boards, unless you started it, there are limitations to the level of promotion you have. Some boards have threads dedicated for company news and such. For most threads, you have to be more generic to engage the community, but it’s still possible.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelinlibrarian/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

During the last couple days, I looked at using search — or better, social media monitoring — to help with blogger outreach, and search to help improve one’s Twitter community.

Today (yes, I know I’m very late with this post), let’s take a look at LinkedIn for building business prospects. This can be used for various objectives, but, in my example, I’m looking at it as a small agency or solo practitioner using it in business development.

LinkedIn has many great ways to find people within your community — professionally and/or geographically — that are open to business relationships. While LinkedIn offers many ways to search, you do business with people, not “companies,” right?

So, use the advanced people search: see right.

While there are many ways to filter your search, I want to point out a few key ways:

Keywords: You can search for prospects based on terms related to vertical industries you have experience in. Sure, you can filter by Industry, but using keywords allow you to refine your search around specific industry terms.

Geography: Looking to do business near you or in your favorite city? LinkedIn has a lot of flexibility to help you search by geography.

Open to potential: The bottom box highlighted is the real key: It shows you who on LinkedIn is interested in what. I have the “interested in: Consultants/contractors” option. There’s also:

• Potential employees
• Entrepreneurs
• Hiring managers
• Industry experts
• Deal-making contacts

And, the ever-there: all option.

Once you get your results, you can sort various ways, from relationship to you, recommendation, keywords and relevance.

So, what are your good LinkedIn tips?

Since business is all about relationships, be sure you are networking with local Social Media Breakfast groups, Social Media Clubs, PRSA, chamber groups, etc. And, be sure you check out LinkedIn to see who is closely connected to you — but you don’t yet know.

-Mike

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can use social media to build business — either having me talk with your group or help your social media marketing efforts — I would appreciate it if you’d contact me.

In the local Sunday paper, there was a Bloomberg News Service story about Facebook’s recent influx of cash from Russia-based Digital Sky Technologies, and what that means to Facebook’s total valuation. (I couldn’t find the exact story on line, but here’s a similar one with the below tidbit.)

In that story, there’s this tidbit:

“Facebook and MySpace may have a combined $820 million in combined sales this year, a fraction of the $45.7 billion online advertising market, according to New York research firm eMarketer Inc.”

In that same story, there’s this forecast:

“Facebook generates sales through advertising. The company expects revenue to climb 70 percent this year.”

While that sounds positive for Facebook and I would think advertising on social networks in general, I can’t see where advertising on social networks is the best bang for the marketing buck. CTRs stink on Facebook. And, overall, social network ads get little attention.

If you want to reach social network members, go ahead and advertise for awareness, but don’t spend a lot of money on it or expect a lot of returns. What should you do to market on social networks?

Be social.

Engage.

Connect.

Those are nice words, and let’s look at some ways they can be used:

• Start a page or group — and make it active.  Make sure someone in your business or at your agency is in charge of making that page active. Post information and value of interest to member and potential members — not just about your company or product.
• Engage members by starting discussions; seeking opinions; feedback on product ideas, industry tips, trends, etc.
• Drive membership while showing value to current members or fans with a contest. Consider regular, but small contests that’ll result in beneficial exposure, mentions, testimonials, etc., of your brand.
• Develop and promote a widget that provides value around your company, product or service.

Ultimately, do regular activity that gives value to those you want to reach.

Do not broadcast ads — that’s old-media, one-way communication on new media, interaction platforms. The two just don’t mix.

When in Rome, be like the Romans.

Be social on social networks.

What other ways can companies and associations engage with their audience on social networks?
-Mike

It looks like we’ll have about 100 people at the inaugural Social Media Breakfast-Toledo Friday — that’s TOMORROW — April 3, 7:30 - about 9:30 a.m., at the Elks Lodge #53, 3520 Holland-Sylvania Road, Toledo.

If you’re going:

• To get directions, click here.
• To get a run down on the four local professionals — Victoria Kamm, Allen Mireles, Damian Rintelmann and Dave Rigotti — who’ll be offering their social media insights during the discussion, click here. Moderator Michael Temple also will be taking audience and even online questions (that’s the plan, at least).
• If you haven’t paid yet, you can do so at the door. Just $10 for a breakfast buffet, with a mix of hot and cold stuff, plus coffee and etc.
• The Elks Lodge does have WiFi, and it is a secured network. You’ll get the password there.
• Please be sure to fill out the brief, one-page survey prepared. We want to know what you think about social media in the area.

If you can’t make it but will be at a computer, you can still watch, listen and/or participate.

• View the event live via our Ustream.tv channel.
• Follow #smbtol tweets on Twitter as one or two of us will be tweeting key points. Of course, others in actual physical attendance can tweet it too.
• If you want to ask questions, do so via the chat function at Ustream.tv, follow me or Kevin Cesarz on Twitter. Again, please use the #smbtol hashtag to be sure someone sees your question. Note that, not all questions can be asked (depending on timing, etc.).

But what do you do after Social Media Breakfast-Toledo?

• If you want to watch it again, you can do so on Ustream.tv
• Join the community at SMBToledo.ning.com — if you haven’t already. There, we’ll be uploading pictures and other items from the event. You also can continue the event by connecting with those you met, initiating discussions, adding your feedback with blog posts, etc.

And, be sure to watch, read and listen for details of the future Social Media Breakfast-Toledo events.

-Mike

We all like lists, mnemonics, and other easy ways to categorize and think of things. As I’ve been involved in social media, varying themes, processes and truisms repeatedly surface.

While there’s always room for discussion and revision (eh?), successful social media marketing is about the three Cs: Connecting, Contributing and Communities.

Connecting: Companies naturally want to seek out customers, prospects and other key influencers in their social media marketing. They want mass, numbers, heads, hits, targets — people. Businesses and organizations need to seek out and find common ground with their marketplace. They need to find out how THEY CAN HELP THEM. Unlike other forms of marketing communication, social media involvement cannot be one-way communication. Business and organizations need to find a way to connect with their audience.

Contributing: Connecting ultimately means businesses are contributing value to their audience members’ lives — personal and/or professional, online and/or offline. They are not just hocking products or service. They are showing what value those products and services have, and making non-company-focused contributions. That means personalizing the entity. Opening yourself up. Showing personality. Being authentic, not corporate. Once, and as contributing is done on a regular basis, then a sort of community forms.

Communities: The more companies connect with their target audience, and provide valued contributions, communities will form around their social media tools and activities. It could be followers on Twitter, fans on Facebook, readers of a blog, attendees at real-world, offline events — whatever. But, communities will form. Some bonds will be tight; others will be loose (like those shoppers who buy a product just because they have a coupon). But there’ll be community bonds of some type.

AND THEN, with some level of attachment, companies and organizations will see hardcore results via inquiries, sales, customer feedback (more positive than negative if the three Cs are done right), referrals, etc.

Whether B2B or B2C, consumers don’t necessarily want to love a company; but there does need to be some level of connection. For many companies, the sales the drive the company do not occur every day. So, the key is to be top-of-mind for consumers, and to have a positive connection — which is only achieved through contributing so communities can be formed.

And, on and on and on in circle.

The three Cs of successful social media marketing: What do you think?

-Mike

Scrabble Letter C courtesy of lwr (Leo Reynolds) on Flickr.