Marketing with Mike Volpe

New data from the HubSpot State of the Twittersphere report shows that Twitter is growing in use outside of North America.

Want to learn more?  Watch the free webinar "The Current State of the Twittersphere".

This is a guest post from Kristin Dziadul, a recent college graduate with a marketing major, she is the 2009 New England Direct Marketing Association scholarship recipient, and has a strong passion for marketing and social media and blogs at www.KDmedianow.com. She is also a big Boston sports fan!

Social media has revolutionized the way that companies are now interacting with their target market. However, in order to be a successful player in the social media field, you must be seen as a thought-leader with a personality. This is not an easy task to accomplish, since so many companies are now invading social sites every day. I believe that creating an impressionable personality through your social media communications is a huge key to good relationship building.

How, then, can a company create a personality via the Internet? I find it more important than ever for a brand to convey a specific and memorable personality so that consumers can picture the person behind the company. Today, consumers do not want to do business with a company that does not care to interact with them. Instead, they prefer to buy from companies that are willing to reach out to them and hear their feedback.

Companies must begin, if they have not already, to develop their own community in which consumers can engage in meaningful communication, whether this is a ning community, blog, or community forum. This will not only help the company gain an understanding of customers' needs and problems, but they can get a good sense of the company's personality. For example, imagine meeting someone and conversing with them, but never really knowing too much about them personally. You know what they studied in school and you know their general hobbies, but nothing more than that. What a boring friend! The same goes for a business; consumers want to know who they are giving their money to and interacting with on a deeper level.

When developing relationships with these consumers, it is critical to ensure they are authentic and genuine. If you reach out to the target market to initiate genuine relationships, consumers will find this much more impressive, therefore increasing your chances of doing business with them and converting them into a strong lead.

A report by Mashable suggested that companies should be a digital trendsetter by giving consumers interesting, new information to read. This information does not need to be about your product or service, in fact it is better if it is not. Being seen as a thought-leader in the industry increases your credibility and expertise in the eyes of your market. In the same article, Jessica Randazza from Digitas stated, "as brands become more entrenched in social media, there will be a need to silo things out and focus on creating more genuine content."

An example of how important lasting brand images are lies with the PGA and their recent conflict. Tiger Woods was traditionally seen as the ‘image' of the PGA, and represented all that was good and professional about golf. However, after his scandal in 2009, the whole PGA suffered this great reputation. What did the PGA do wrong? They put their whole image on one person, Tiger. No other professional sport did this.

Another Mashable article reported that, "they cannot hinge the business of golf onto just one player- it's not practical. Golf existed before Tiger, and it will exist after he leaves." The PGA now has to rebuild its brand beyond the image of Tiger, and social media can help achieve this. Other players, including Bubba Watson and Stewart Cink, are on social sites developing their image as a part of the PGA, which will go miles in helping this sport recap its professional image. The article continued, "What the PGA needs to do is move forward and embrace social media to the max. Currently the PGA has a Facebook page with just over 35,000 fans, and a Twitter account with a little more than 19,000 followers." These numbers are not large at all for the actual fan base of professional golf.

The PGA serves as an example that many companies beginning to embrace social media should follow. They should ensure to create a genuine, lasting image without depending on one single factor that distinguishes them. Just like the image of a brand, a company personality must encompass many a full-fledged persona while still being consistent throughout all mediums on which it is translated.

What are some ways your company is embracing a social media personality?

Earlier this week at Woot Con, in addition to the keynote presentation, I gave a presentation about Lead generation, Lead Conversion and ROI.

I streamed the presentation live, so you can watch the video or view the slides below.

Today I had the pleasure of delivering the keynote address at W00t! Con in Bakersfield, California.  I used my new iPhone 3Gs to stream the presentation live on Qik (my old phone was just an iPhone 3G and did not do video).  You can watch the presentation in full (until my battery died during th Q&A) or just see the slides.

This is a guest post by Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, who is a demand generation expert and sales leader, as well as the President of Find New Customers, a lead generation company, which helps businesses create lead generation campaigns and continually publishes the best lead generation ideas, so his readers can determine the best lead generation strategy to find new customers. 

Seth Godin, author of best-selling books on marketing like Purple Cow, Meatball Sundae and Permission Marketing and his latest book, Linchpin talks about the need to develop remarkable content. What is remarkable content? Seth says it is "Content the reader finds so interesting, people remark to each other about it."

How can marketers create content so interesting to the reader that people start talking to each other? That seems, to most B2B marketers, a bar set too high. They certainly grasp the concept, but they struggle to put it into action. The goal of this article is to give you specific ideas of how to put Seth's concepts into action.

How can our content deeply engage readers and earn their permission for continued communications?

In order to answer that question, we need to move to an area where most of us have little experience - publishing. Specifically, we're looking at great story-telling - that engages readers on an emotional level. Don Hewitt, the late creator of 60 Minutes, described the continued success of that show as being due to their ability to tell great stories. Look at the young girl in the picture above - she's obviously engrossed in a book she finds of great interest. She's emotionally engaged. But how might you do the same thing in your B2B company? I think the best way to examine this challenge is to look at what makes - and does not make - a great story.

What does NOT not make a great story?

• Information about your company, your products or how great you are.
• Technical and obtuse terms - your speeds and feeds
• Company history and awards

• An engrossing plot with surprises, twists and turns. In the B2B world, it may be as simple as a yarn of how companies can move from a business problem to stellar results. But it's got to be a great story.
• Short chapters with images that support the story. Pleasing graphic treatments that engage the mind.
• Each chapter ends with a "hook" - a tease of what is to come in the next chapter. That keeps the reader flipping pages and looking forward to the next installment.
• The ability for the reader to direct the story. Let her move back and forth - look at an earlier chapter, for instance. Readers want to be empowered.

This is a guest blog post by Wayne Kurtzman, who is a senior marketing analyst for an international telecom company and has led knowledge management and web analytics practices for startups and larger companies including Intel. Wayne is also the social media consultant for Destination ImagiNation, a not-for-profit organization that fosters teamwork, innovation and creative problem solving skills in students.

Columbus came to the New World; legend has it, with three ships. Just three breezy, easy to count boats. The population of the West Indies, where he landed, also counted three. Although it was a different language, they quantified it the same way. The web came along and the numbers started getting fuzzy. Now, with social media changing the landscape, people are bending the rules of counting in an attempt to justify a voyage into New Media.

The rules in the 1984 Dan Aykroyd movie "Ghostbusters" was "don't cross the streams" of the proton guns. I think the same rules actually apply in interactive media analytics, and for the same reason.

Web visits, unique sessions, time on site and destination pages all had their places at one point in analytics. There never was gold in those numbers. I preferred a daily report on what was searched on our web site and especially from our knowledgebase. Where did our customers (or prospective customers) spend their valuable time - or where did they give up on us. From this information, I could determine where people were having problems with our products or documentation. When this was correlated with detailed support center information from around the world, it allowed us to provide proactive support, writing knowledgebase documents at the first indication of an issue - before it took dozens of people to answer the same question over and over again. Most important, we were able to use our resources to address what was most important to our customers in the way of features, patches and new products. Sure we saved tens of millions of dollars from support alone, but it was because we quantified the customer's needs and reacted to them.

It's Not Just Social Media That Ups the Ante.

Social Media sites create thousands of additional data points. In the old days, we could know what you needed on our site if you signed into the site.

Today, there are mining evolving tools that can determine everything I've mentioned plus your online behaviors, attitudes and opinions. This "psychographic data" is easier to measure with single sign-in web sites like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and even Twitter. While still in its infancy, this type of analytics is leading to some scary-cool and mutually beneficial information systems.

At its simplest, if you go to an electronics e-commerce site and always select the tech specs, the web site will have the intelligence to just default to the tech specs on a product information page.

Getting a bit more complex, customer relationship management (CRM) software will, right when you call, identify you as a more technical user, and automatically route your call to a representative who can "speak tech" at your level. Later this year, one of the largest software companies will roll out a CRM system that can even let a rep know your sports team preferences - to have something in common with the caller.

As mobile users and especially mobile commerce, or mCommerce grows, just add your GPS data into the data set.

So how do we quantify all this? Not by the numbers we're using now. And beware of "snake oil number" salesmen who will show you how [fill in the blank] makes sense. After all, people are still talking about web site "hits" - and any analyst will tell you that there's no such thing as "hits".

Today, you need to find out what forms a statistically significant correlation with groups you want to connection with. That's if you're marketing into demographic groups and hoping for a 5% conversion rate. That's so 1990's, or maybe 1950's. Actually, it is both.
Since social media is based on conversations, just like your Mom and Dad had with the neighbors, measurements are challenging - but doable. Your challenge is to listen to the individuals in the online sites that THEY prefer. Next, learn the best way to reach qualified individuals on their terms, and especially on the ground that you share. Since most people want to be happy with products and services, they will be willing to help you - if you learn how to listen and how to react to the good and bad quickly.
If you don't listen to your customers and prospects, it would be like crossing the streams of the Ghostbusters proton guns: "Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light".

"Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip".

This is a guest post by Chris Englund who writes "Chris is an MBA navigating Social-Mediaville. Follow him on Twitter: @cgenglund".

Paid tweeting is a good idea: phenomenal measurability, incredible reach and extremely high conversion. But, am I the only one who thinks so?

In the late 1860's Italian chemist, Angelo Mariani engineered a wine that had the ability to restore health, cure the flu, fortify the brain, etc. What distinguished Mariani's from the vast array of contemporary concoctions was the Pope Leo XIII Bump. His Holiness appeared in print advertisement for the wine and awarded it a Gold Medal. Vin Mariani flew off the shelves across Europe and North America. 


Let's imagine my client is selling makeup, not coca wine, and they're advertising in 2010, not 1873. Should I get the larger-than-life Kim Kardashian to influence her 2,875,876 followers:

"My skin is glowing & healthy. Way excited about this new foundation! Pick some up at Walgreens, RT & tell me what you think: http://url"

A Tweet From Our Sponsor

Through Facebook, Email, or Twitter the link remains connected to the original campaign. URL shorteners ensure the destination can't be deciphered and offers instant click-through stats for free.

Tweets go to fans and followers, individuals who have specifically opted in. This isn't an email list, these individuals show their appreciation for the message through intentionally following, replying, and re-tweeting.

Short messages are naturally intriguing and inspire action. Good tweets elicit response and reaction. Unlike text ads in search results, this message is unframed by other advertisements and does not appear distinct from other tweets.

Kim Kardashian is no Pope, this I know, but nearly three million twitterers hang on her every word. She's acquired social status and authority. Like a Pope urging Catholics to the wine shop, I would want Kim calling customers to the makeup counters.

What do you think the value of a paid tweet is?  Leave a comment and let's discuss.

This is a guest post by Ilya Mirman (@IlyaMirman), who has held marketing and engineering roles at several hardware and software companies. His last three gigs have been as VP of Marketing for SolidWorks (3D design software), and two venture-backed MIT spin-offs - Interactive Supercomputing (acquired by Microsoft) and Cilk Arts (acquired by Intel). During his free time, Ilya enjoys photographing rock concerts and political events. [Photo: Ilya in his "Florida Uniform"]

Serves me right. Here I was, recuperating from a bender in Vegas by relaxing with in-laws in Florida, when I saw Volpe's tweet ("I'm looking for GUEST BLOGGERS for MikeVolpe.com - @ or DM me with an article headline if you are interested") and sarcastically DM'd him the headline above.

Mike took the bait ("love it. email it over and i will print it. if u are serious") - but now I was on the hook to produce something. So here's my two cents on the topic:

7 Reasons Why Guest Blogging is a Great Thing:

#7 - Introduces new perspective, new content to your audience

#6 - At the same time - gives guest blogger a new audience to share their content with

#5 - SEO benefits for your site (broadens the scope of terms your site can rank for)

#4 - The links between your sites will make it easier for your audience to discover your guest blogger's site - and for his audience to discover yours

#3 - The links between your sites will make it easier for Google (and other search engines) to know the sites are related, and leverage each site's SEO juice to help the other

#2 - Helps establish the guest blogger as an expert on the topic

#1 - And YES... it is a bit of a lazy way out: a great way to have fresh new content on your site without actually writing it (though of course there's no free lunch - you're still your blog's editor-in-chief!)

Ok, if the above is wicked simplistic, and you're thinking, "Thanks, Captain Obvious!" - here's another angle: there might be something akin to Metcalfe's Law going on here. Instead of two separate audiences exposed to separate content, guest blogging exposes more people to more content, and the social nature of the web allows for that many more possible interactions - blog comments, tweets, sharing. Feels like this would be an amplifying, non-linear force in driving communication, awareness, activity - and ultimately some conversion relevant for your site.

Anyhoozle... Having guest bloggers participate is a great thing for everyone - for the people you are all trying to deliver valuable content for, for the guest blogger, and for your business - so give it a shot. (There's a few tips and tricks to doing it efficiently and successfully - perhaps a topic for another post :).

I am 2 weeks into my Inbox Zero experiment.  So far it is great!  After having 300+ emails in my inbox on a regular basis, about a month ago I started trying to be more diligent about email and was able to get down to a steady state of 150.  Inbox Zero got me over the top, and while I have not hit zero, I am under 10 on a regular basis.  I feel much more in control of my email (rather than the other way around) and email is taking the same or less total amount of my time as before.

The 10 second version of "Inbox Zero"

Stop "reading" email and start processing it.  If you open a message, you need to DO something with it: delete/archive, delegate/forward and delete/archive, respond and delete/archive, or add to "to do" list and delete/archive.  The main point is to stop using your inbox as a "to do list" because you end up wasting time because your inbox is a messed up mix of things that need hours or days of work and stuff that needs a quick read or response.  Re-reading all the messages that you read but did not process ruins your productivity.  If you open the email, do something with it right then.

If you want to learn more, check out the slides below, or watch the original 2007 Inbox Zero Video.

This is a guest post by Marijo Tinlin, who is the principal at Sunrise Business Consulting (@SunriseBusiness) which helps small and emerging businesses and entrepreneurs get traction in business, sales and marketing. Her specialities include all facets of marketing including inbound marketing, content marketing, database marketing and search engine optimization.

Just as you may have a personal Twitter account and one for your business, you may want to separate the Twitter feeds for your company to specifically address certain parts of your business.

This could mean that you separate out the Customer Feedback feed from the Company News feed. Or if you are a technology company, you might want a Tech Support feed so your corporate feed doesn't need to address technical issues.

There are several advantages to this:

1. You can serve different audiences easily, by interest or by geography (include foreign offices)
2. Your readers can set up mobile notices for just the information they want from you
3. You can help your search engine rankings by the sheer volume of your brand being out there because the search engines search Twitter in real time. Here's a link to an example of how this works from Andy Beard @AndyBeard .

Zappos is a perfect example of addressing different customer and employee needs through different Twitter feeds. There are almost too many to list here but besides CEO Tony Hsieh's famous feed on @zappos, they also tweet for the following:

• Inside Zappos @inside_zappos
• Zappos Help Desk @zappos_helpdesk
• Zappos Service @Zappos_Service
• Zappos Pipleline @Zappos_Pipeline
• Zappos Tweetup @Zappos_Tweetup
• Zappos Kids Team @Zappos_KidsTeam

In addition, specific employees tweet as well, including the COO. So you can see they get granular about how they address the needs of customers and employees.

Keep in mind that once you have a customer service Twitter feed, everyone who follows that feed can see the back-and-forth conversations you are having with your customers. In the new paradigm of real-time customer feedback, as a company, you must be prepared for what you'll see and use this feedback to get better, not defensive! Happy Tweeting.