Ask on G+ redefines be there before the sale

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Jan 23, 2012 in Advertising, Marketing, Social media, Social networks | 0 comments

A long time ago, Chris Brogan coined the phrase “be there before the sale” with regard to social media. Google takes that yet another step further with the revelation of “Ask on Google+” to search results. Here’s the scenario: you search Google along your line of inquiry and don’t find anything super helpful. When you don’t, you see at the bottom of page 1 results a link asking if you want to ask your friends on Google+. Click it, the box appears, and you ask your network.

Think about the implications of this as a marketer. Why bother going to Page 2 of the results if you can ask your friends at the end of Page 1? The impact of this change is twofold:

1. Pages 2 and on are immediately less valuable as people are encouraged to ask their network first before changing pages.

2. If your customers have circled you on Google+, then when any of them use that link to ask their networks, you can effectively be the first to know about a product or service inquiry, before your competitors. Think about it: if a potential or current customer asks Google+ about, say, coffee, and you are a coffee roaster who they have circled, you will see their inquiry before they even get to a competitor’s website to fill out a contact form. If you’re fast on the draw, you’ll intercept that social search query and answer it, nabbing the business in the process.

So what must you do to take advantage of this latest social twist?

First, make sure you’re promoting your Google+ brand page in your standard communications. Let people know where it is on your site, in your emails, etc. Encourage people to circle you, and don’t be shy about it.

Second, provide ridiculous value on your Google+ page so that people stay connected to you and have a reason to share you with their networks as a company or person worth following.

Third, listen very carefully so that you intercept those requests faster than your competitors, then respond as quickly as possible with valuable help so that your prospective and current customers have no need to inquire elsewhere.

People are asking for your help right now. The question is, are you able to listen and respond as effectively as possible?

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How I’m using Buffer to sync my social

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Jan 11, 2012 in Advertising, Marketing, Social media, Social networks, Strategy | 7 comments

A while back I said that I was testing out Buffer, and would let you know what I thought of it. For what I’m using it for, I think it’s a brilliant little app.

Here’s what I’m not using it for: phoning it in on Twitter. While it can do that and reasonably well (I used it for this purpose during the holidays), it’s still not going to deliver game-changing results for you, since a large part of social media is the social part – interacting with other people. Phoning it in and getting results requires you to have unbelievably awesome content worth sharing, and very few of us have that.

What am I using it for? Periodic reminders. What I’ve done with Buffer is create something of a chart that helps me lay out the basic reminder framework I’m using:

Each week for 4 weeks, I’m reminding people in my various audiences about my presence on other social networks. Last week, it was LinkedIn. This week, it’s Google+. The other networks will be represented, then I’ll likely start the cycle anew.

Why did I choose this method for using Buffer? These are the kinds of periodic reminders that are important to keep publishing if new people are joining your network. One look at the basic raw Twitter graph illustrates the necessity of these periodic reminders:

In 30 days, the network has grown by about 2,000 people. Assuming that each and every person knows who I am, what I do, and where else I post is sheer folly. Thus, Buffer provides me the opportunity to gently remind the new folks where else they can participate and interact with me. How did I pick the times to set my periodic updates? Crowdbooster provides a nice chart of when my existing audience is most active on Twitter:

Crowdbooster + Buffer + a set of standard updates is my current formula for success with the app.

How are you using Buffer?

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Klout vs. PeerIndex: data challenge for the data junkies

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Jan 9, 2012 in Metrics, Social media, Social networks | 3 comments

Rather than just outright publishing my own conclusions, I’m going to try an experiment with you, my data junkie friends. We’ve talked about influence scores and reputation scoring systems like Klout in prior posts. We’re not going to rehash that here.

What I do want to pose to you is this: what’s the difference between Klout and PeerIndex, and which is a better indicator of influence, if any?

To that end, I present to you a simple data file. Here is a list of 15,737 Twitter handles scored by both Klout and Peerindex. For the most part, these are people who tweeted in the past month or more using the #Marketing hashtag at least once. In the data file you’ll find the following:

Klout score, PeerIndex score, Difference, Twitter Handle

Take a look at the file (it’s a text CSV). I did the boring part of the work, pulling all the scores. Now it’s up to you to do the juicy part and find the goodies. Mess around with it in the spreadsheet or data crunching tool of your choice. See what conclusions you come up with, then either post your conclusions in the comments or blog it on your own blog, linking back to this post so we can all find it.

Good luck! I’ll post my own conclusions separately after I’ve heard from you.

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The burst pipe

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Jan 5, 2012 in Advertising, Marketing, Social media | 6 comments

If you’re not a homeowner, you miss out on some of the joys of life, like taking out the garbage at 7 PM and wondering why water is spraying out the side of your house. That was last night for me – seeing water rushing out of the side of the house near the foundation and wondering what in the world was going on. One quick trip down to the basement revealed the very unhappy truth: one of the heating pipes near a partially frozen open window had cracked and was spraying water everywhere.

This is what my basement felt like.

In something of a panic, I did the first thing that came to mind and called my plumber, Paul. I said, “Hey Paul, I’ve got this pipe spraying water everywhere, and so much of it that the sump pump is actually having to work to empty out that part of the basement. Can you send someone over?” He said, “Of course, but my guy can’t be there for 2 hours. For now, why don’t you just shut off the water main?” After that he promptly hung up in order to call his emergency on-call plumber and get him assigned to our case.

For someone like me who knows little or nothing about plumbing and house design/construction in general, he might as well have said, “Why don’t you go take this scalpel and remove your gall bladder?” It took a minute or two and a fast Google search to figure out what a water main looked like and how to shut it off, but the moment I did, the water stopped rushing into the house and the immediate crisis was over.

After all was said and done, the repairs were completed, I settled up the very, very hefty bill, and thanked Paul and his team for another job well done. Despite the bill being astronomically high for a relatively straightforward repair (remove 2 inches of broken old pipe, insert new one), I was more than happy to pay it so that life could get back to normal. Fixing it myself was far beyond my knowledge of plumbing, which is close to zero. (although I now know where the water main is)

When we as experienced marketing professionals look at the social media landscape, there’s an awful lot of stuff we deem “snake oil”. People are selling books, DVDs, webinars, consultations, etc. on the most basic of basics, like how to set up a Facebook page or a Twitter account, and to veteran practitioners, it’s almost offensive what they charge for. We forget that there are an awful lot of people who have the marketing equivalent of a burst pipe in their shop, and they don’t know where the water main is, much less how to fix it themselves. Thus, they’ll pay just about anything to just about anyone in order to get the most basic repairs underway.

More important, there will always be a role for people doing the basics of social media on behalf of others for a tidy profit. Why? For the same reason that I will continue to pay Paul and his team to come out to my house in the night time and fix simple things: I don’t want to become a plumber. I’ll learn enough to get by for real basic stuff, but anything more than turning off the water main, I am happy to leave to him and his team. Likewise, there will be plenty of folks who want you to be their social media plumber. They don’t want to become digital marketers. Instead of berating them for not doing it themselves or mocking them for not knowing where the water main is, be helpful, provide your service with a smile, and like me calling Paul’s shop, they’ll always call you back for more and happily settle up whatever the bill is.

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Be your own social media customer

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Dec 20, 2011 in Advertising, Marketing, Social media, Social networks, Strategy, White Belt | 3 comments

If you want a viable long-term social media strategy, there’s one that is nearly foolproof: be your own customer. This has been phrased in many, many ways, such as eat your own dog food, etc., and for good reason: it’s true. Despite being true, however, we rarely do it.

More important, we have to expand this idea from just the product or service that you’re marketing to everything that you’re doing with your social media marketing. Think of your marketing as a service unto itself, a service that adds value to the salable goods or services you’re promoting. In that light, is your social media marketing a valuable service?

Ask yourself this: how often do you go back to check your own blog for something you wrote previously? One could argue that this is just a symptom of a variety of attention deficit issues, but it’s also a sign that you’ve stored valuable information on your blog. If you never go back to reference your own blog for yourself, it might not be valuable enough.

The same is true for your social media channels. I store links and URLs on my Facebook page in order to archive them somewhere for reference when I publish my weekly newsletter. I am my own customer – I go there to remember what I published. How often do you check your posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+? Never? Your content in social media might not be valuable.

Much has been made of influence scores and retweet/share metrics, but the simplest metric of all is to look at your own behavior. If you never go back to look at your own stuff, if you find no value in what you publish, chances are that no one else does, either. Start repairing your social media marketing by publishing things that are of value to you, and you’ll automatically be publishing things that are of value to others.

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3 methods to power social media success

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Dec 16, 2011 in Advertising, Marketing, Social media, Social networks, Strategy | 3 comments

I wrote the other day on Google+ that the “secret” to social media effectiveness is to give first, without expectation. Mitch Joel cites this as giver’s gain, one of the best ways to build up social currency. One of the most common questions about giver’s gain that stops people from doing it is this:

“But what do I have to give?”

The answer is straightforward: give what people need. You may not be a great content creator, you may not have a lot of experience, but you can learn content arbitrage in about 20 seconds. It goes like this: learn what your network needs, learn who has it, and connect the two.

Learn what your network needs.

There are some universal needs that everyone in the business world wants. Revenue, obviously. Press and media attention. Employment. Very few people will say, no, I don’t want more customers. Very few people will say, no, my business doesn’t need any more press. Very few people will say, no, I’m not interested in more or better career opportunities.

How do you know what your network needs? Listen to them. The people who are top of mind for me are the people who respond to me, people who talk to me, people who overcome their own shyness or hesitation and say hello at a conference. They’re the people who make a solid impression that tells me in a very short period of time who they are and what they do in an impactful way.

Your network is telling you this every day. Look on Facebook for what people are saying to you. Read what they tweet. See what they’ve edited on their LinkedIn profiles. Then start a running mental or physical list of who needs what.

Here’s a “top secret” phrase you can search for: “anyone recommend”. Look at the results for the metro Boston area:

People are asking you for your help all the time. You can easily provide it.

Learn who has it.

A 6 year old can search Google pretty easily. Answering the question of who can provide what your network needs is a matter of asking for data sources. Want to find press opportunities for your network? Subscribe to Peter Shankman’s Help A Reporter service and read through the 3 emails he sends each day that have limitless press opportunities in them. Find relevant queries for people in your network and forward the individual queries by email, and you’ve given people in your network opportunities for free earned press.

Does someone in your network need a job? Subscribe to appropriate geographic and industry feeds on Craigslist (there’s an RSS feed at the bottom of every job category). Listen on Twitter for people posting job ads. Check LinkedIn for who is hiring in your area – just go to News > Signal, and type hiring in the search box and you’ll see everyone asking for people to hire.

Who wants more business? You can be the provider of connections. Look for complementary businesses in your networks and proactively reach out and connect people. Who needs business? Learn who does what in your network and broker introductions.

The power is in your hands.

Here’s the most important lesson of all: none of these tasks require a marketing degree, a large business budget, or anything other than the ability to search intelligently. If you’re a college student looking to build a network before you graduate, if you’re someone looking for work, if you’re a sales guy or gal looking for deeper business relationships, these are all things you can do right now, today, at no cost except your time.

Social media success is waiting in front of you right now. Go get it!

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