I was sent an invitation to connect with someone who’s newsletter I have been receiving for many years.  I found the information very informative and helpful in many cases.  However, when I talked to him about his locked down connections he told me “I don’t want my competitors to see who I know”  I explained that

• A. I wasn’t a competitor,
• B. Perhaps he should be connected to his competitors if he is that unsure of his customer relationships and
• C. It’s difficult for me to trust people who don’t seem to trust anyone else, as I find that the people most paranoid about trust are almost always the most untrustworthy people I meet.

Remember, you don't have to connect with everyone.  Just because you've been friends with them in-person, that doesn't mean that they are just as friendly on-line.

You already know that that is not realistic.  But that is the same kind of thinking that is taking place in Social Media.

“Hey, we can just set up a Twitter account in a few minutes”

Well, yes you can, but, just like the first time buyer of a machine tool, there’s still an awful lot to learn. The sooner you start learning, the farther in front of your competitors you’ll be.  This is a pro-active approach.  Too many b-to-b companies, particularly exhibitors at IMTS, took a reactive approach. They jumped in and created their “social media brand names” without first having personal accounts so they understood how it works.

So the best way to learn is to set up some social media personal accounts.

Facebook – “That’s for kids.” Step back from any preconceived notions and think about this from a business standpoint.  There is a war going on.  Two data collection monoliths, Facebook & Google, are each trying to outdo each other. 

In April 2010 Facebook announced at their annual “F8” conference the “Open Graph”: That’s why you are seeing the “LIKE” button appear everywhere. Here’s why that’s important:  If you recall the first time you got a day planner you learned that you should not only put your business appointments down but also soccer games, weddings and personal events.

Time management 101. Your life is 24 hours a day. Facebook at it’s core is personal. But your personal life affects your business and vice-versa. Facebook collects personal data and associates it with your interests. If your title is “CNC machinist,” it permits advertisers to target that.

Although Google has a massive database, they have not “aggregated” demographics as deep down as Facebook. They are both competing for ad space. If you were at IMTS in Chicago and logged into Facebook, you may have seen some ads running.  But you would have only seen them if you were with in 5 miles of McCormick Place, between 7pm -10pm, were male, between 35-55, and had some keyword in your profile indicating you were in our industry.

​The “pay-per-click” cost .60 cents each and had a cap on the amount spent by the advertiser. Yes, you can do that level of targeted advertising. Creating a Facebook Page is a way to become “engaged’ and be in front of your customer when they get home from work.  The busiest time on Facebook is Wednesday and Friday evening, but we’ll talk about that more later…

They are “IN” all for the above digital spaces and probably another 1,000 more.

Have you ever purchased something online?  Have you looked down at the product reviews and decided against the purchase of something because of the reviews?  Then, did you think  “Wow, I wonder why that manufacturer isn’t reading that and fixing it? They’re getting really bad press”  The problem is that the manufacturer may not even know about the comments to address them. But B-to-B  consumers ARE researching and engaging each other.
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There are a number of free products out there to use to search for who’s talking about what.  I would recommend going to Social Mention and type in your company name and brands and see what appears.  You will find that you can drill down and drill down more and then drill down even more into exactly who is talking about what where.

Start with a personal account on:

• Twitter –  Set up Twitter account and follow some people. You can follow @RPMconsultants where we tweet about social media or my personal Twitter account, @bernardtmartin where I tweet about Education, STEM, F1, Economics and Foreign Affairs. You can then check out who we follow, learn some basics, ask some questions.
• Facebook – Set up a personal account, be sure to set your account settings to “friends only” across all categories and then search for “International Manufacturing Technology Show” or “AMTDA” on Facebook.  Look at whom they have made favorites on their Company page.  Hit the “LIKE” button.

• DON”T go out and set up accounts in YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook for your company right this minute! That’s would be like a customer saying “I want to buy the CNC with the Green Paint, I like that color.”
• Set up your personal accounts and then go to “Knowem” Search for some available names.  I’ve talked to many machinery distributor owners and employees over the years and heard “Yea, our website name is WAY too long, but it’s what we’re stuck with.”

Unlike registering your web address, your URL, with a service that reports to one central agency for verification, called ICANN, there is no single service registration of your “Social Media Brand name”
Places like Knowem allow you to search for brand names.

You want to use the same Brand name in ALL of your social media spaces.

​There are several considerations in the selection of THAT name:

• Shorter is better. Remember Twitter on permits 140 characters in “tweets” You don’t want to eat up half of it with your company name and be limited on your message.
• Use the same name in all social media spaces. That bears worth repeating. Remember that long tail search discussion?

There’s a big difference between watching Golf and playing Golf at a professional level. Social Media is no different that other professional efforts: Once you become in engaged in it you learn that it’s probably not as simple as you first thought.
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In the course of talking to prospective clients I’ve found a mixed bag of comments that all go something like “I got plenty of people who are on Facebook all the time, you can create an account in 5 minutes”

Unlike when you registered your website with a registrar for your unique URL, which was all overseen via ICANN, there is NO singleplace that you can register all of your SOCIAL MEDIA brand name. The key to words there are “Brand NAME” and not “Brand NAMEs”.  You have to create a profile in each SM space you want to present your brand individually.
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As a marketer you already know the importance of using consistent images and names.  It becomes even more important in social media because you want people to find you when they use a search engine.  If you have a mixed bag of names your message may not reach the people you want to reach and, like two ships passing in the night, you will never engage in conversation. One very good service to use to begin the process is Knowem. However, Knowem doesn’t help you establish your brand in your industry specific niche forums.

I’ve talked to some very well-known major companies about their Social Media efforts.  When we sit and look at their SM spaces we discover that they’ve “jumped into” social media “Oh yea, we’re there!” But then we dig into it only to find that they have set up their company name as personal account and not created a COMPANY profile at all.  They at risk with not only with the loss of the SM account but also the loss of all of the conversations that they are engaged in already.
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Just like entering a new foreign market there are cultural “rules” that should be followed.  By not showing respect for the local culture, and taking the time to understand it in advance, you risk creating a negative brand image that could take years to recover from to get back to zero.  Don’t burn your bridges and not even realize that you’re doing it.  Social Media spaces have their own culture. You are entering a cyber world.  Be sure to have a good understanding of how things work before you make the trip.

Once you have selected a brand NAME in your various spaces, you will need to have a good understanding of how the various “Status Updates”, “Wall Posts”, “Tweets”, “Blog Posts”, etc all connect together.  The people you want to reach may be in one SM space while you’re posting, at that moment, in another. Determining which posts are shared and which are not becomes a very important decision.
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There’s quite bit more to think about that I’ve put into the slide show below. Take a peek at it:

The above slideshow presentation should give you an overview of how to start your social media efforts.  It outlines the reach and scope of social media (SM) for those new to the space.

Once you have gotten into the new cyber world to market your brand, stay acutely aware that the landscape in social media is changing.  I’ve compared it to the 1849 Gold Rush in San Francisco.  Everyone is new, Everyone is from somewhere else.  What was the “best place” last week is not the “best space” this week.  That’s led some to say “Let’s wait, and not be on the bleeding edge”  The Bleeding Edge was several years ago and it was yesterday. The onslaught of new users hourly entering the social media cyber world is beyond compare.

Here’s an example, when I started using Slideshare as an add-in app on my LinkedIn profile it was NOT a social network.  It was a place to put slideshows to pull up on customer & client computers.  NOW, it’s a social network…. and the added functionality is expanding weekly it seems.  Every social media site is doing the same.  As they grow, they are becoming more and more niche, more and more industry specific, more and more topic specific.  Getting IN is critical at this point so that you, and your company, can establish your brand as a thought leader and engage and develop relationships…. but, you MUST stay engaged and continue to drill down as the individual spaces evolve.

I recently had a conversation with a client about YouTube and how it has evolved.  I showed them Don Fitchett‘s YouTube Channel Business Industrial Network. Don has been in that space (and many many others) for some time. He has over 430,000 upload views, has 1500 subscribers staying current with his latest news and he has over 5,000 friends.  That didn’t happen overnight.  Don is continuously engaged with his clients and potential clients.  Now ask yourself two questions:
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• If I wait for the dust to settle how many customers might my competitors pick up and I won’t know about it?
• If I jump into the space and don’t understand the culture, or have a plan, what will it cost me?

The conclusion that should be drawn after reviewing this is that developing a structured Social Media Strategy and Tactical implementation plan is crucial to your company’s success.

Without a plan you may find yourself creating a negative brand image within the space and end up spending more money trying to undo what you created and start over.

I look forward to your comments and questions.
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Special Thanks to @RonDavies for blogging about “Knowem”

I've been asked a lot of late "How can we start to sell our stuff on Social Media?"  Well, the first thing you're going to need to do is let people source and buy FROM Social Media!

If your network is locked down and there are different permissions for different people, you're going to have problems.  If your marketing people post something and get a technical question that they cannot answer they won't be able to kick it over to an engineer, because she WON'T BE ABLE TO SEE IT if your network is locked down.

Step 1: Open your network. Remove your firewall for your employees so that they can gain access to LinkedIn, Twitter & YouTube.  Some larger companies have some functions open and others closed.  As an example, if you can access LinkedIn, but not get into the groups, then there is not going to be ANY conversations. (remember, Conversations is one of the 4C’s discussed in What Are the 4 C's of Social Media?). Let your employees access Social Media!

Step 2: Appoint a Leader.  It’s going to be very important that someone take charge of the effort if it’s not going to be you.  Keep in mind you can make it a team effort and several people can be in charge of different efforts at different times. If you choose to go with the “Team” route be sure to set up a schedule for who’s doing what and when…. and stick to it.

Step 3: Create a Persona. There are several divergent schools of thought on whether or not Companies should have their logo as the profile picture, whether there should be a person’s name associated with the your social media sites, etc.  I suspect it really depends on the size of your company and what you hope to accomplish. ​

Give us a call and we'd be happy to set up a call to have that conversation!

As a follow up to my previous posting “What’s all this about Social Media and where do I start?” Several people have written and asked for some more details.  I realize that I presented an awful lot of connections and links and it left some folks completely new to the subject dazed and confused.

I’m realizing that many of the folks connected to me only have a few connections, incomplete profiles and probably aren’t getting much out of LinkedIn. In this posting I’m going to explain what social media outlets we chose  as an industrial distributor. I’ll break this down into the social media categories, and then walk you through some of the basic steps of getting started.  I also try to give you a time estimate of how long it will take you to get the “basics” in place.
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Out of all the social media sites available we chose FOUR outlets. Hopefully after you are done with all three parts of this posting you’ll feel less like the blind men discovering the elephant.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Facebook

Start by clicking the link below.  Hit the back button when you’re done viewing.  It’s probably a good idea to open another window to edit your LinkedIn account while you go through the slides. I’m going to go into more detail below about slides 29 & 30 so don’t worry if you don’t get it at first.

LinkedIN Basics
View more presentations from Concept Hub, Inc.Getting started with LinkedIn is very simple, and, since you’re probably reading this from my LinkedIn profile connection you probably have at least the start of your profile complete.  Regardless, take a look at this slideshow and make sure that you haven’t missed anything.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been on LinkedIn since my neighbor told me about when she was a beta tester (Thanks Cindy!) It’s been interesting watching it evolve and content features been added.  However, that’s also a problem.  New features get added that are great and you don’t always know about them until you see the changes in your other contacts.  Which is a another good reason to look at your connections 😉
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Ok, watch the slide show in the link above, Complete the basic steps and then we’ll move on. If you haven’t watched it yet.
——————-> LinkedIN Basics

Once you’ve mastered some of these basics you soon start to realize that maybe you yourself should start a group.  If you’re a manufacturer, you could start one only for your distributors, if you’re a machine tool builder, one just for your dealers, a distributor, one for your customers. Agents can start groups for their distributors… there are really endless ways you can use the group functions to create the “conversations” so often talked about in social media.

If you start a group. Your Invitation Filtering should look like what you see above.  Otherwise, your members aren’t going to be able to connect with you. There’s some great ideas on creating and managing your own LinkedIn Group at Mashable “8 Tips for Managing a LinkedIn Group”  The list is below and the details are at the link. It’s worth delving into if you want some more information.

1. Use a Personal Touch
2. Lay Some Ground Rules
3. Praise the Good, Deal with the Bad
4. Help Your Members Promote Themselves
5. Add Some News Feeds
6. Facilitate Connections Outside of LinkedIn
7. Take a Poll
8. Promote Your Group

One final note on Groups.  If you start a group be prepared to support it and get responses.  If you watched the Facebook F8 video above you’ll hear about a problem called the “rule of 5”  If someone comes into your group and they don’t see 5 people they know they’ll probably not participate.  So if you’ve got a email list of the members you want to invite, send them all an invite to LinkedIn, followed by an invitation to join the group.

Social media is about connecting and building relationships – talking to people. Taking part in discussions gets you noticed as well as keeps the conversation going and the sharing of information, viewpoints and knowledge

So, for goodness sake, if you start a group and ask questions and topics start rolling for goodness sake answer and respond!
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I hope that you found this informative.  Please feel free to add any comments.  I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of Linkedin so if you have some observations or insights please feel free to leave a comment (and yes, I’m working on unlocking it so your comments post immediately but I’m still learning about all the WordPress functions so bear with me)
Thanks for reading 🙂

Where do your customers LAND somewhere when they search the Internet?
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The Common Actions Desired of Your Company Landing Page:

• Get a visitor to click (to go to another page, on your site or someone else’s.
• Get a visitor to buy.
• Get a visitor to give permission for you to follow up by email or phone.
• Get a visitor to register for a newsletter or updates.
• Get a visitor to tell a friend.
• Get a visitor to learn something, which could even include posting a comment or giving you some sort of feedback.

Ok, Now let’s take a look at your options to drive traffic to your website:

Facebook
It started in 2004 and was originally limited to Harvard students.  In 2006 anyone over the age of 13 could join. In 2007 Facebook created an area called Pages that enabled companies to create profiles for themselves. And in 2009 they introduced a LIKE button for users to click on and let people and companies know what they liked.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is fast becoming THE business tool of social networking. Rather than summarize why just click this link to find the 33 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business

At a minimum create a company profile page for your company.

You can take a look at the company profile we created for Highlander Tool Company here. It’s pretty simple to create. One thing you will notice is that we have taken our brand message very seriously. The message we set up is to communicate what we do and who we are. …and we’ve used essentially the same message for every social media profile. (So once you create ONE you can cut and paste, albiet with some editing, for all of your Social Media sites.

YouTube
Creating a YouTube channel was really driven out of necessity.

Below is an excerpt of an email I sent to everyone in our company when we launched our YouTube channel:

“I wanted to make you aware that this weekend I worked on finally getting a central place where you can show customer’s product videos from their computer while visiting their facility."

This presents some pretty big cross-selling opportunities!

So, How Do You Get Customers to Land Where You Want Them To?
Each one of the above social media website always you to let people who follow you about new products and to direct them back to the exact landing page you want.