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Getting Global-burgh

9/19/2013

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Pittsburgh is rapidly becoming a hub of innovation and is attracting international business. This discussion on August 2 2012, took a look at several opportunities & introduced several resources that entrepreneurs can utilize to grow their business internationally from the Western Pennsylvania area.

Presented by: Jessica Lee’s Entrepreneurial Thrusdays 
Co-host Bernard T Martin, www.rpmconsultants.us/President, Rapid Production Marketing 

Thomas Buell, Jr., APR, Director of Marketing
Global Pittsburgh
Improving the region’s global competitiveness by creating long-term relationships connecting the Greater Pittsburgh community with international leaders and influencers.

Brian Tamburro, Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives,
CED Faculty & Staff : Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College
Center for Economic Development Carnegie Mellon Heinz College.
CED affiliated faculty and staff serve as advisors and administrators for CED system synthesis projects. The knowledge, experience, and interests of the faculty reflect the Heinz College’s interdisciplinary approach to policy analysis. Individuals have engaged policy and management questions in economic development and its related domains from a variety of disciplinary vantage points, with a variety of tools, in a variety of roles including researcher, practitioner, and policymaker
​
Steven Murray, Senior International Trade Specialist
U.S. Commercial Service 
The U.S. Commercial Service in Pittsburgh is your first stop on the road to exporting success. With over 30 years of experience assisting Western and Central Pennsylvania exporters, our trade specialists provide you with the knowledge and support you need to start or expand your export markets.

Getting Global-burgh from Bernard Martin on Vimeo.

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The Future of Industrial Classification: UNSPSC

1/11/2012

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As we get deeper and deeper into a global economy there are some things you should be aware of that are developing.
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UNSPSC is the acronym for the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code, it is a coding system to classify both products and services for use in the eCommerce. The UNSPSC was jointly developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Dun & Bradstreet Corporation in 1998. 

It is currently managed by 
GS1 US, which is responsible for overseeing code change requests, revising the codes and issuing regularly scheduled updates to the code, as well as managing special projects and initiatives.

Eventually, you are going to have to attach a UNSPSC code to all of your products.  Take a peek at the link above to understand it a bit better.

Labor Costs

“We’ve been doing it this way for years and no one else has complained”  If I’ve heard that once I heard it a thousand times.  Maybe, they stopped complaining years ago and maybe, just maybe, your never even heard the complaint.  Let’s look at some dollar and cents.

If someone at an end user keys in an order and faxes it to a distributor, that distributor keys in the order and faxes it into the manufacturer.  The manufacturer keys it into their system.  The product ships and a hard copy of the invoice is sent to the distributor who must key in some more information,  then the manufacturer sends out a printed copy of the invoices to their agents.  The agents then key in the sales again.  

That’s an awful lot of repetitive keystrokes folks.  

​It’s pretty easy to see why moving to electronic databases and communication is happening and is going to move to a standard.

Standards

So what are the field names you should use if you don’t have something already?  Here’s a rough outline:
  • Part Number
  • Description 1
  • Description 2
  • Package Quantity
  • Retail/List Price
  • Distributor Net/Discount from List/ and/or multiplier from list
Those are good column headings for your spreadsheet.  

Outside of THOSE headings there should NOT be any other row that describes something about a set of items.  If there is information that applies to the entire group of items (rows) then each item should have that same information.

To the right you will see an example of something that is ready for import.  Notice how it is different from the spreadsheet pictured above.  

There is one column heading throughout.  This is really not for viewing but for importing.
Non UNSPSC Database Coding Industrial Distribution
Details Details
But there is ONE error in the picture. Can you see what it is?  To be honest, you would probably not even catch the error.  Take a look at the FORMULA in the highlighted cell.  It’s a formula and not text.  The pricing columns all have dollar signs in them.  That’s a nice thing to do if people are going to read it but the computer has to import it.

There have been cases where distributors said “Wow this is a great file and ready to import!”  but then the import went south with strange errors.  It wasn’t the dollar signs,  it was the rounding.  There was multiple column pricing for quantity breaks.  

Everything was a formula and when it was converted to text it had numbers that where out 6 decimal places. Because the formula’s where all based upon one cell as a baseline, the rounding errors got bigger and bigger and when the import happened the pricing was up to .27 cents off on certain items.  That can add up if they standard package quanity is 144 pieces. Why did it happen? Because when the import was done it only imported the first two decimal places.

Once you’ve completed your spreadsheet save all of the fields as TEXT and this problem will go away.
Details Details and more Details
Some other things to consider: What software system do your distributors use to run THEIR BUSINESS?  It’s a good idea to ask.  You may have field length issues when importing.  

​If you have a Description 1 field that is 100 characters long but the field in the software only permits 43 characters, with the rest being parsed, that information IS NOT going to be in the database.  If you have one critical dimension at the end of the description and upon import an entire group of items is parsed all of the part numbers will be different but the descriptions will all be the same.

“Well, we can’t make 100’s of special prices list for EVERY distributor” you say.  You don’t have to.  Just find out what the software is at your key distributors and accommodate them.

“Again, no one has really complained about this before so we don’t think it’s a big issue”

When do you update price lists? When you introduce a new product or have a price increase. Right?

Now, what does a good outside sales force do when there is a change?  They have a sales meeting with the distributors to review the new products (and new catalog) and get the distributor salespeople pumped up to go out and sell.  In many cases this is happening as soon as the new price list is put out… in some cases your sales force is brining it with them.

Is the IT person in the room for the meeting?  Generally the answer is no.  Does your outside sales force commonly work with the IT people at a distributor?  Do they even know who does it if you ask them?  Generally, the answer is no.  When the IT person gets the file, if they discover it’s going to take some time to clean up it gets put on the backburner, especially if their primary responsibility is accounting or other back office work.
​
So what happens in the field? Your salespeople go out, make calls with the distributor salespeople and get some orders.  They place the orders.  The price list isn’t updated so they spend the next couple of days fielding questions, dealing with distributor inside salespeople and your customer service people.  They aren’t selling.  You’re losing money and you’re getting a “difficult” to deal with reputation.

Take Aways

  • Take a look at your price lists.  Are they easy to import?
  • What software are your distributors using?  Are your price lists easy to import?
  • Have you ever called your distributors and asked them what they would like to see improved or changed in you price lists to make their job easier?
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“How Do I Manage All of This Social Media Marketing?”

4/13/2011

1 Comment

 
After reviewing the opportunities that Social Media Marketing presents to small business I inevitably get asked "My God! How do you manage all that?"  

Simple! "There’s an APP for that!”  Well, actually, there are a multitude of application dashboards so that you can see ALL of your social media sites.


Realize that the heavy users of Social Media are NOT online every minute.  They have done several things, which are very important to be aware of, as you ponder social media marketing:
Best Social Media Management Tool: HootSuite
Masahble: Best Social Media Management Tool 2010: HootSuite
They have “wired” their social media sites together. 
In all reality you can only be in one place at a time.  Different users will be using different channels at the same moment.  You notice that when you channel surf on TV that you see the same commercials sometimes?  It’s just like that. In order to maximize your exposure you “connect” the sites to each other so you don’t have to post the same thing over and over again.

Remember when I explained that Twitter was a “junction box”? This is how it “connects” Twitter
permits the sharing between sites better than most any other social media site.

Here are a couple of examples of dashboard app’s:
  • Co-tweet
  • Hootsuite
  • MarketMeSuite
  • Seesmic

They have Pre-programmed “Tweets” and announcements.
If you already do a newsletter email or product announcements electronically, you have content to use.

Two very good examples of how this can be done is to take a look at Criterion Machine Works or TechniksUSA Blog sites.  Once a blog is posted it is automatically tweeted, posted on their Facebook page and appears in a number of social media outlets.

...Automatically
The Blogs can be programmed to post at a given time and, once the switch is flipped on the timer, everything else happens seamlessly.

That however, is not where it ends.  Unlike just sending it out there and hoping people read it, now your customer can interact back with you.

Think of social media like your cell phone. You should check it a couple times a day with your dashboard application and see if you have messages, comments, or questions and then “engage” the customer in some “conversation.”

Measuring ROI

Just as there are a number of dashboard app’s there are an innumerable number of “analytics” to gage and measure success in real time.

In fact, some of the dashboard applications I mentioned earlier have the measurement tools built right into them. Measuring is actually pretty easy.

Without going into a tremendous amount of detail on measurement tools, be aware that the list of measurement tools practically exceeds the number of social media outlets that exist.  Just for Twitter there are sites like Analytic.ly, Twifficiency and Twitteranalyzer.

Facebook has built-in analysis tools for their Page.  Your ROI is really going to be determined by what you put into the effort.  

​Just like a salesperson, the more you engage, the more return.  If you sit in the office and just send out emails and don’t follow up to engage into the conversation not much is going to happen.  “Engaging” is the key to ROI and the analysis tool sets are all going to measure this kind of activity and report on it.
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Industrial Equipment Sales via Social Media

3/16/2011

2 Comments

 
AMTDA Tool Talk Social Media

​A shorter version of this article appeared in the 
American Machine Tool Distributor’s Association “ToolTalk” newsletter in October 2010 starting on Page 4.

This article on social media is going to be a bit different than previous articles that have appeared in Tool Talk. 

​We’re going to address some of the core questions that the 
AMTDA membership has been asking about Social Media:
  • “Is this just a fad?
  • Should I just wait until the dust settles to get in?”
  • “What are the best Social Media places to be?
  • Where are my customers?”
  • “I don’t have enough time to respond to emails, how am I going to manage these marketing efforts”
  • “How do I know what my ROI is?
  • How do I measure it's performance?”
Luddite email 1993 Social Media 2010

Is Social Media a Fad?

Social media trends by Age 2009-2010
“While social media use has grown dramatically across all age groups, older users have been especially enthusiastic over the past year about embracing new networking tools.

Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled—from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010.
  • Between April 2009 and May 2010, social networking use among internet users ages 50-64 grew by 88%–from 25% to 47%.
  • During the same period, use among those ages 65 and older grew 100%–from 13% to 26%.
  • By comparison, social networking use among users ages 18-29 grew by 13%—from 76% to 86%.”
-“Older Adults & Social Media”, Mary Madden, PEW Internet, August 27, 2010


Social media is generating the same conversations today.  The big difference is that the “tools” to use and manage social media are expanding exponentially and will continue to expand.  The pace of change in the last 18 months in Social Media would be like moving from NC Tape Machines to full integration of MT Connect in the same time period.
….It’s not a fad.

Should I just wait to “get in?”

Unrealistic expectations for new CNC machining center
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.
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Start with your LinkedIn Profile.
  1. Does your profile web link say “My Company”  or contain your actual company name?
  2. Create a Company Page – it’s that little document icon next some people’s company name.
…get in now. 

​Be Sure to read the article Social Media for Industrial Marketing, Part 1: LinkedIn for more details.


What are the best Social Media places to be as a Machine Tool Distributor?

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YouTube – It’s the simplest way to enable your sales force to have all of their product videos in one place.  You don’t need to re-create the wheel or even upload any videos. 

You can go in and “favorite” your builder’s videos after you create your own channel.  

You can read more about this here: 
Social Media for Industrial Marketing, Part 2: YouTube
​


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Twitter – “Twitter’s like snack food: it tastes good, it’s fun to eat but there’s no nutritional value” In some sense, the above statement is true.  But with two  BIG caveats: It’s all in what you make of it, and, most importantly, it's a FOUNDATION level application. 

Without going into a lot of detail about API’s and tech jargon, what you need to know is that Twitter connects to 
almost everything.

It’s like the junction box in an electrical system.  

​Want to learn more? Click here: 
Social Media for Industrial Marketing, Part 3: Twitter
​


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Blog – “I don’t know what to write about, I don’t have content” Press releases, news articles, technical information…. Cut and paste.  There is lots of content available.

Obviously, clear all of this with the content owners.  Actually a Blog is one of the very best things you can create. Think about this for a moment. When you type a search into Google, you don’t type just “CNC” you type what you are looking for: “cnc swiss screw machine multi axis.” 

You have learned over the years that by typing more information you are more likely to find 
exactly what you are looking for in a topic. ​​

​This is called a “long tail search.” That’s very important to know because it’s how your customers find out about your company and your products. It becomes even more important because the new algorithms used by search engines are location based. 

You’ve probably noticed that when you use a “long tail search” and you’re in Chicago you don’t get listings for many places in Europe. 

That’s not because there 
aren’t places in Europe it’s because they are NOT near Chicago.

US-Companies-Using-Blogs-for-Marketing-Purposes-2007-2012
43% of U.S. companies will be blogging by 2012.
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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…

Where are my Customers?

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.
​
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.

Where to Start

“I’ve gotta interpolate down and then ramp into this corner with a ½” tool at an 8 thou chip load and I need a 32 finish. Which is better Linear guides vs. box ways? How’s your look ahead on that?”
The first time you heard that it would have been like a foreign language.  Social Media also has it’s own language:
“I put the hashtag in the summary blog post & the metatag to increase my SEO”

So where do you start?  You can’t arrive in our industry green and expect to know everything. Same thing applies for social media.
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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.

​The first step is really about “learning” about how to use these tools for your business.

What NOT to do & Where to begin ​

  • 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?
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Social Media Marketing: Getting Started

2/9/2011

1 Comment

 
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.
​
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”
The Social Media Mess 2010

Selecting your Social Media Brand NAME

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.
​
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.

​Read the “Terms of Service” (TOS)

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.
​
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.

​Linking your Social Media

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.
​
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.

​Getting in & Staying IN 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:
​
  • 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?

Conclusion and Take-Aways

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.
​
Special Thanks to @RonDavies for blogging about “Knowem”
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Social Media for Industrial Marketing, Part 4: Facebook

11/29/2010

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If you recall in a posting not all that long ago entitled “Why Not  Facebook?” For Industrial Marketing"  I suggested that Facebook was probably not the best solution for industrial marketing.  Times change.

​There are 3 things you can create on Facebook

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….as of this moment.  Facebook is changing pretty quickly. If you have 10 minutes then click on THIS LINK and learn a bit about Facebook’s Social Graph.  Facebook  just turned 3 years old and, if you have a Facebook account, you probably realize that to call it a “moving target” is an understatement.  I’ve been noticing that many companies in the industrial marketplace have been creating a market presence on Facebook.  A word to the wise, take your time and learn more about your options.  You can do one of three things on Facebook:
  • Create a Personal page – You do need to do this first, if only to comply with the FB TOS (Terms of Service)
  • Create a Group – Discussed below
  • Create a “Page” – Discussed below and probably what you want 😉
Facebook requires that you have a personal page yourself in order to create a company page.  There are workarounds for this but you are actually better off creating a personal page as indicated in the link in this paragraph.

If you create a Personal Page that is actually a company page you are in violation of  the TOS at Facebook, which they are starting to take rather seriously with all of the privacy concerns raised about their recent changes.  It’s rather simple: People have created personal pages to reconnect with old friends and there may be some conversations that is “between them”  Unbeknownst to them though is that you have created a company page as a personal page… and they are now “friends” with you.  Which means that they are now sharing with industry colleagues information that they may not want to.  

You can understand how this can very very quickly harm your brand. Don’t do it.  If you have already please feel free to contact me and I’d be happy to discuss how you transition your “Friends”.
​
The real decision is Page vs. Group:

​Pages vs. Groups: How to know which to use

There are a number of factors you need to consider when choosing which is right for your project, a Page or a group.

Personal vs. Corporate:
Due to their security features, and size limitations (only groups under 5,000 members can send email blasts), Facebook Groups are set up for more personal interaction. Groups are also directly connected to the people who administer them, meaning that activities that go on there could reflect on you personally. Pages, on the other hand, don’t list the names of administrators, and are thought of as a person, almost like a corporate entity is considered a ‘person’ under the law.

Facebook considers groups to be an extension of your personal actions. When you post something as a group administrator, it appears to be coming from you and is attached to your personal profile. Alternately, Pages can create content that comes from the Page itself, so that content doesn’t have to be linked to you personally.

Update: Also one key difference is that Pages are indexed by external search engines such as Google, just like a public profile while Groups are not.

Email vs. Updates:
As long as a group is under 5,000 members, group admins can send messages to the group members that will appear in their inboxes. Page admins can send updates to fans through the Page, and these updates will appear in the “Updates” section of fans’ inboxes. There is no limit on how many fans you may send an update to, or how many total fans a Page can have.

User Control:
Groups offer far more control over who gets to participate. Permissions settings make it possible for group admins to restrict access to a group, so that new members have to be approved. Access to a Page, however, can only be restricted by certain ages and locations. Again, this makes groups more like a private club.

Applications
Pages can host applications, so a Page can essentially be more personalized and show more content. Groups can’t do this.
​
Moderation
Neither Groups nor Pages have great moderation features. They can both be a little granular as to how things get posted, who can post, and what kind of media can be posted, but that’s about it.
If someone posts spam on your Group or your Page, you have to remove it manually, and you can also remove specific members
I think you can see why a “Page” is probably what you’re looking to create.  Watch the following video on how you can create your page.  Hubspot has some  great video’s so be sure and check out some of their other content for more information.
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10 Twitter Mistakes Made By Marketers In The Manufacturing Industry

11/15/2010

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Written by: Norman Wright
 “
Wright-To-Know”
This article reposted by permission. 
Many manufacturing companies that are finally jumping into social media have no strategy.  A good number seemingly are checking off a list of social media tools they have subscribed to show their participation. What is more telling is their lack of credibility and comprehension of how to use social media to generate new business for themselves.
Twitter is one of the social media tools that can be used as a tool for your manufacturing company’s social media marketing strategy to generate online traffic and a pipeline for new business leads. It is the leading traffic generator to my Wright-To-Know blog.
​
Here are ten mistakes marketers in the manufacturing industry should  avoid if they want to generate new business through Twitter:
  1. Signing up then not participate. A tell-tale sign that Twitter is nothing more than a check-off on your social media check-list. When you rarely post to Twitter it will show.
  2. Self Promotional Tweets. Marketers that sound more like cars salesmen, constantly using promotional Tweets to tout their company’s new hires, new business acquisitions, awards, etc.
  3. Hiding behind the Company’s veil. Using your company’s  name as the Twitter account without revealing who is doing the Tweeting. Even Ford Motor Company gets this right, having allowing @ScottMonty to be their social media spokesperson under his own Twitter name rather than through the company’s name. It’s awkward to try and engage with a company. Social media is about people. A lot of the same principals of face-to-face networking applies to social media networks such as Twitter.
  4. Auto Responses. These drive not only me but will drive your prospects crazy. They are impersonal, and usually contain no value other than to clog up your Direct Message box forcing you to scan through dozens and dozens to reach those who have sent you a personal one.
  5. Little if any value to your Tweets. 80 to 90% of my tweets are resources for my audience to help them with their new business challenges. They are a combination of posts from my blog and other resources that I usually find and pass on in my morning ritual of reading my RSS feeds in Google Reader. I use a tool called bit.ly to post an article, along with a shortened URL to Twitter.
  6. Fail to generate Twitter traffic ‘to anything”. I have recommended to manufacturers that they should have a blog that becomes the “gateway” to company and generate traffic to the blog through tools such as Twitter. The blog serves as the central component to your social media strategy.
  7. Failing to use 3rd party Twitter tools. These tools can help you identify your best target audience and build your Twitter account’s data base of followers within the ratios mandated by Twitter. Your company’s blog content can stay fresh with new postings but older posts have a very long shelf life from not only SEO but also through repurposing posts to Twitter using some third party Twitter Tools. At our firm we have a process in which we syndicate our clients content over and over again… very much like a traditional media schedule. It’s naive  to think if you have written a post and everyone has read it.
  8. Using the reply function when you should use a direct message. Not every reply needs to be share with your entire Twitter audience. Almost all replies should probably be sent by Direct Message to the person.
  9. Failing to engage in the conversation. It amazes me that most marketers in the manufacturing industry have reservations about engaging with their prospective client audience.  Social media and tools such as Twitter, provide the most efficient means of creating personal network with your agencies best prospects. I have thousands of followers on Twitter alone and it is easy to stay engaged and be part of the conversations without it requiring an undue amount of time. I probably spend no more than 15 minutes a day responding through Twitter.
  10. Allowing the early adopters of Twitter to mandate how your company should use it. Face it, Twitter has superseded anything envisioned by its creators or early adopters “way back in 2006.”  It’s amazing that it was the celebrities, not ad agencies, that first figured out the value and potential of Twitter.
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Social Media for Industrial Marketing, Part 1: LinkedIn

11/3/2010

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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.
​
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

LinkedIn (Total Time: 15-45 minutes, depending on your profile)

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 😉
​
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

Setting up Your Company Profile. Here's Why it's Important

Slide 29 & 30 are the ones that you should take a close look at. 

​If you haven’t set up your Company Profile DO IT!
​

Once it’s complete you’ll have a great mouse-over feature so people can find out more about your company.

​I’m constantly surprised how many business owners in my connections have never take the quick 5 minutes to create this free advertising spot.


Bernard Martin LinkedIn Profile 2010
LinkedIn Profile Company Mouseover

Why is my Company Profile so important? GROUPS!
Having your company profile in place is important for Groups.  But before we dive into groups, look again to the right and notice the”Connections” area of the upper profile.  You already know that you can click on the Connections to see who you might know in your friends connections.  This is afterall a social network.
​
If you where to scroll all the way to the very very bottom of my profile you would find the following statement.  The items in bold are the important part.
“I prefer to only be contacted by people I know, have met personally, or have had business, professional contact. or dialogue with in some forum. I welcome new connections from members of groups that I am actively involved in but I prefer not to connect until we have communicated. I am not an open networker and I do not wish to submit my connections to “business trolling”. I hope you understand and appreciate my position on this issue.
As it was explained to me when I first learned about LinkedIn: “It’s like a networking group based upon the “Six Degrees of Separation”

Wikipedia says: “The LinkedIn professional networking site operates on the concept of how many steps you are away from a person you wish to communicate with. The site encourages you to pass messages to people in your network via the people in your 1st-degree connections list, who in turn pass it to their 1st-degree connections.”

LinkedIn has blossomed into a very useful business tool with Groups and Answers sections, but the basic premise of the site is whom do you know that I know, how can I help you network and conversely how can you help me network.

That said, I am wary of people whom I link to who have their connections locked down. IMHO, it flies in the face of the very basic concept of LI as a networking tool. If you invite me to connect, and your connections are closed, I will send you an email in this regard.
​

You may have your reasons for locking your connections and I certainly respect that. I feel that I am connecting with people whom I respect and who I may contact one day with opportunities for their professional advancement or, conversely, whom I might contact with a question. For that reason I will only maintain connections with those people who make their connections available to their 1st level” contacts."

Groups (Total Time to find &  join: 5 minutes)

David Erickson has a great blog post entitled “LinkedIn Best Practices for Business“.  It’s worthwhile to check out if you have a few minutes to read more.  But, if you don’t here’s what he says about Groups:
“Join industry groups. Search for and join industry-related LinkedIn groups , even if there is no activity within them. The icons for those groups will show up on your profile which tells people at a glance that you are involved in your industry and presumably knowledgeable about it. It also creates a connection between you an anyone else who is a member of that group. If the group is active, join in the conversation where appropriate. This is an opportunity to demonstrate your  expertise.”

I’ve recently had a discussion with several fellow members of the ISA – Industrial Supply Association about the groups function.  

Several fellow members are connected to me but are not in any of the groups.  There’s a conference next weekend and there’s some wonderful dialogue taking place within the group.  Connections are being made.  

I’ve been in the situation before. I’ll run into two people who I know at an event.  One of them will pick up a conversation that we’ve been having online.  Finally, a question is raised by the other person, who we are both friends with “When did you guys talk about all this?”  We explain that it’s all online via a  GROUP.  “Hey, maybe you should join it, You’re a member aren’t you?”
LinkedIn Industrial Channel Groups
Industrial Channel Groups
If you’re a member of any of the groups that I’m a member of you can either click on my profile or you can search for other groups under the group drop down or the search area to the right of the header on your LinkedIn page.

Starting your own Group

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!
​
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 🙂

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How Do You Get Customers to Land Where You Want Them To?

9/15/2010

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Where do your customers LAND somewhere when they search the Internet?
​
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:
Social Media User Data 2009
Do you have any idea how MANY social media sites there are?!??! Take a Look at this link on a List of Social Media Sites. 

Which ones are best for your company?  

​Before you get overwhelmed let’s dig a bit into the Big names:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube


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.
Top Insights from January 5th, 2009
  • The 35-54 year old demo is growing fastest, with a 276.4% growth rate in over the approximate 6 months since we last produced this report
  • The 55+ demo is not far behind with a 194.3% growth rate
  • The 25-34 year population on Facebook is doubling every 6 months
  • For those interested in advertising alcohol on Facebook, there are 27,912,480 users 21+, representing 66.3% of all users.
  • Miami is the fastest growing metropolitan area (88.5%) and Atlanta (6.4%) is the slowest
  • There are more females (55.7%) than males (42.2%) on Facebook – 2.2% are of unknown gender.
  • The largest demographic concentration remains the college crowd of 18-24 year olds (40.8%) which is down from (53.8%) six months ago.
Take away? Parents and professionals are rapidly adopting Facebook. Companies should be paying attention to this but it may not yet be ready for prime time.
A sidebar note worth thinking about:
The real interesting thing happening with FACEBOOK is the bleed of the Gen Z and Gen Y demographic. As the older folks have embraced FB the younger folks have begun moving to more specialized sites that meet there unique individual needs and interests. This is typically a footnote in most of the analysis.

“Facebook has just gotten too big & too commercial, I won’t “friend” a company and let them see all my info, but I’ll still Fan a page, You just gotta watch” I recently heard a 20-something say to me.

Remember when I said earlier that the whole concept of social media is evolving? It is.

Ok, so you’re probably wondering what the difference is between a PAGE, a Group, and a Community on FB. You may want to check out Marketing Your Business on Facebook: Group or Page?

We have elected NOT to use Facebook for industrial clients yet as the demographic we are targeting, At this time, industrial buyers are not using FB for research. That could change.

Twitter
Twitter is a free social networking (micro-blogging) service that allows users to send and read messages known as “Tweets”

“Tweets” are text based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the authors subscribers “Followers”

We are we using Twitter for industrial marketing.

Why?

​Remember the search engine optimization stuff?
Picture

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.
Highlander Tool LinkedIn Profile
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.
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What Are the 4 C's of Social Media?

5/19/2010

1 Comment

 
4 c's Social Media Community Content Conversation Conversion
Ok, so the previous posts have given  you have some information, but which one of the social media outlets should you choose?
Just hang on a minute. You should know about the 4 C’s of Social Media:
  1. Communities
  2. Content
  3. Conversations
  4. Conversion
1. Communities
Traditional advertising is about interrupting.
Social media is about sharing and interacting.
  • 78% of social media users interact with companies or brands via new media sites and tools, an increase of 32% from 2008.
  • 95% of new media users also believe companies or brands should have a social media presence.
  • 89% believe that they should interact with their consumers using social media.
2. Content
  • No hard selling
  • DO NOT communicate a sales message
  • DO IMPLY a sales message
  • Consumers want entertained, informed, and educated.
  • If they like your content they will probably like you.
If you share good content consistently over time they will likely begin to trust you
3. Conversations
Traditional Advertising: Talking AT someone.
Social Media: Talking WITH someone.

What are “Conversations?”
  • A comment on a blog post,
  • A retweet
  • A comment on your LinkedIn or Facebook
  • A “Thumbs Up” on a Facebook wall
Yes, it’s going to take some time. Interesting that I recently had a conversation about Twitter. it was compared to snack food: “It tastes good, takes alot of time to eat, but has no nutritional value” At this point in time in the manufacturing sector, that is probably a true statement. In 6 months….?

THE KEY: You put out a message or content and someone chooses to respond.
These conversations and those among others will have an impact.
  • 51% of respondents say that social media has influenced their online transactions.
  • 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
4. Conversion
All of the pieces should work together to lead to Conversion.

Common mistake: Send people to the home page. It builds traffic but may not help build DIALOGUE.
​
Remember when we talked about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) a while back?  
Did you click on that link?
You probably should. It’s pretty important.

In fact, if you haven’t read it here’s the synopsis:
The time was when the search engines looked for key words to rank you via a formula. Now part of that formula is whom you are LINKED to from your website. The more links you have to someone who also has alot of links is a good thing and will drive searches to you.

I recall a conversation back in 2003 with a principal of mine, when I was an agent, and he said that HIS company name and website appeared 2nd on a google search while my website appeared above it. I explained then that it had to do with understanding the links and how the formula works.
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