The Art of Effective Networking

When it comes to business, one of the greatest tools you can have in your kit is the ability to network. It might sound obvious, but wherever you are on your career ladder, networking should always be something you can pull off. So, whether you’re in management or you’re at the start of your working life, read on to discover how to network effectively. After all, no one’s going to know how great you are unless you get out there and start letting them know…

1. Do: Get Out There

Maybe you’re not a natural networker, fair enough. But if you want to get ahead in business you’re going to have to start pretending. So, the next time you receive an invite to a networking event, accept it and follow these simple tips –

• Hold your head up high, smile, make eye contact, and walk around the room
• If you don’t see anyone you recognise don’t worry. Head for the drinks queue – this is a great place to start up a more natural conversation
• Wear something you feel comfortable in – if you’re in a new suit that’s a size too small you’ll end up feeling self-conscious so go for a tried and tested outfit and that way you’ll feel more relaxed

2. Plan Beforehand

Sometimes it can seem like everyone else in a room, besides you, knows everybody – probably because of the way they talk to each other. This definitely isn’t the case, it’s just down to conversation skills. If you’re a little rusty when it comes to chatting to strangers, try practising beforehand. Think about some openers you can use to strike up a conversation and then follow-up questions once the first bit of talk has ended – after a couple of minutes you’ll soon start feeling relaxed and will probably be able to ditch the one-liners and freestyle instead. Effective openers are often open-ended questions which gives the person you’re addressing the opportunity to reply with more than just ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Try openers like these –

• This is my first time at one of these events, what are they like?
• I see XXX is giving a talk later on, do you know what topics he’ll be covering?

Or, instead of using the situation you’re in as the starter, you can use something about the person you’re addressing. It’s best, though, to keep this as innocuous as possible as you don’t want to offend anyone from the off! Maybe they’re holding a book you’ve read – that’s a great way in, or perhaps they’re eating something you haven’t tried so you could ask them about that.

Try to avoid opening with ‘nice weather today isn’t it?’ as this requires minimal input from the person you’re addressing and most people can’t think of a quick response when it comes to a topic as dull as the weather.

3. Follow Up Questions

Once you’ve found your way into a conversation things should start to flow more easily. However, as a fallback you can always rely on questions like, ‘So tell me a little more about…’ and ‘you mentioned you did such-and-such, how did that go?’ Basically, instead of worrying about what you should be saying, the best thing to do is to concentrate on other people. That way, they’ll think you’re the friendliest and most interested person out there and you’ll get to know plenty about them, and whether you could work together in the future. Obviously though, at some point you’ll need to start talking about yourself and this is where you’ll need to perfect –

4. The Pitch

You’ve listened to what everyone else has to say and now people are asking you what you do. Cue: the pitch – this is definitely something you should practise beforehand.

Your pitch should be short, succinct and honest. Don’t blow your own trumpet more than it needs blowing and neither should you give yourself a hard time. If you’ve achieved something in your work recently, slip it into the pitch naturally but don’t go on and on about it. Your pitch should ideally be about 20-30 seconds long (now that doesn’t sound too hard does it?!) – explain what you do, who you do it for, what you’re working on, and possibly what you’re hoping for in the future.

5. Moving On

Remember, there’s a whole room of potential contacts to be made so don’t stay talking to one person for the entire duration of the event. All conversations must end at some point so don’t be afraid to hand your business card over, thank the person for their time and then move on. If you really need an excuse, you can use an empty glass (or plate) as one, or spotting someone you must speak to before they disappear.

6. And Lastly…

If you made some useful contacts, don’t leave getting in touch to a few months later when they’re more likely to have forgotten you. Simply, drop them an email a day or so after the event to say how much you enjoyed talking and that hopefully you can do business in the future. It’ll be appreciated and it will help jog the memory of the recipient and keep you at the forefront of their mind.

Are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & YouTube a Waste of Time? A digital marketing strategy

Are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & YouTube a Waste of Time?

yes – if you are inconsistent, don’t have a marketing plan and invest the wrong amount of time and effort.

What does digital marketing mean to you?

Today I received an email that offered a webinar that covered:

1. The top 3 proven strategies for ensuring LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube add value to your business
2. Why the WRONG STRATEGY can hurt you even more than NO STRATEGY.
3. How automation DONE RIGHT can quickly double the effectiveness of your Social Media presence.
4. CRITICAL MISTAKES people are making when using Facebook and Twitter for business.
5. Why Social Media is changing marketing forever.

and for those of us in the space they are easy – so here are my top tips

How to ensure your social media activity adds value to your business

1. The top 3 proven strategies for ensuring LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube add value to your business
   • Regularity – adhoc just does not work, recency is everything
   • Consistency –  ensure people know the subject you are talking about and expect it
   • Transparency – being honest, if you are promoting your materials – say so, if its an affiliate say so – but remember to promote anything you think will be of value to your followers
2. Why the WRONG STRATEGY can hurt you even more than NO STRATEGY
   • If what you are doing is attracting people that are not interested, then this is worse than useless as you are wasting time, energy and effort… not to mention opportunity!
3. How automation DONE RIGHT can quickly double the effectiveness of your Social Media presence
   • Its about regularity – automating or scheduling things in advanced can help ensure your presence
   • It need not take all day and night to have an effective presence, but planning what to do when is more than just a few minutes a week. You need an effective strategy and plan
4. CRITICAL MISTAKES people are making when using Facebook and Twitter for business
   • sell.. sell.. sell – its NOT about pushing just your own products and services – it is about adding value and building trust with your existing and potential customers. make sure they trust you and when they are ready they will buy
   • use one to push the other – there is nothing worse than reading a message telling you to go elsewhere to read more. Sure its fine on  occasion, but people on Facebook want to be on Facebook, and people on twitter are there for twitter, not to be told to “go to my Facebook page2 – how to disengage the majority of your potential followers in one easy step!
5. Why Social Media is CHANGING MARKETING forever
   • Marketing and accessibility is changing faster than ever before. In the past you needed a sizeable budget to have a TV advert to get to 100s of thousands of people, now with no cash outlay, but with people time you can access the world. This factor is here to stay
   • The challenges is now not getting a message out that a potential customer might see – but ensuring that the message says the right things, to the right people, at the right time – and that the message can be heard/ seen over the noise that is the internet
   • Marketing is no longer just for big multinationals, anyone that is prepared to put time and effort into learning the skills, and creating content that people are interested in can access their potential customers
   • The tools available are changing on a month by months basis – and almost all of the training courses and certainly the qualifications are out of date before they are run. Being agile and prepared to try things first and make mistakes are the keys to future success

How to write a Digital Marketing strategy

Writing a digital marketing strategy is no different from any other strategy, with one exception. Most other strategic plans are written by functions or verticals, for social media to work any strategy and resulting action plan needs to be cross company, cross levels, verticals and functions as well as engaging with the “crown sourcing” that are your people. You can never have too many people in the social media space – providing they are all singing from the same sheet.

Digital marketing strategies for online success

Is social media free marketing? – well there is little or no outlay – but there is a significant time and people cost. Just because it is “low cost” “no cost” entry does not make it the most cost effective strategy. Indeed to do it well it can take a lot of time and money – have you planned and budgeted correctly? are the right people doing it?

Before you take ANY advice from any social media consultants, look at their blog, their website, twitter and facebook pages. Where are they ranked in Alexa? do they do this stuff for their own business – or are they “too busy” doing it for others?

 

The Dangers of Social Networking – Duplicity

Social Networking Destroyed My Life

Some months ago we published a humorous piece on “The Dangers of Social Networking in 2010“. This was generally well received, and has been linked to by several other authors exploring the problems of using Twitter, FaceBook and other Social networking tools as part of business or education. There are some real dangers and some real opportunities in the business and learning contexts.

Recently I have been reading more and more about teachers being concerned about being connected with their students and Human Resources (HR) professionals connecting with staff employed in the same organization. This lack of awareness is concerning. It seems that across the world 10s of millions of people are using a tool and they have no idea of the dangers just around the corner. used in the proper way, most social networking tools can add a lot of value to an individual, their learning and the organization for which they are attached (student or worker), however, go into this with rose tinted spectacles and many find themselves deep in problems that are difficult if not impossible to solve (without resorting to very expensive solutions).

I discovered this in a small way some years ago in LinkedIn. I was open to connecting with anyone that asked me to connect – all perfectly harmless I thought, until one of these individuals started to contact all my connections and started to spam marketing messages to them. It upset several of the people I knew well, and understandably so – they trusted me with their details.  Today I only connect with people I know in the real world. I am glad that my learning was relatively uneventful – unlike some that find their students bullying them, casting viscous roomers for schools and workplaces to read.

Blocking the use of these tools is not an option – they are a valuable too, but learning how to use them effectively is vital. It should IMHO be core education for all 11 year olds, teachers and professionals alike. the future of marketing is as much about security and reputation management as is its selling and brand building.

The Power of Social Networking

In this piece I hope to highlight three factors:

• Dangers of Social Networking in Business & Education
• Opportunities of Social Networking in Business & Education
• Some Solutions to effectively use Social Networking in Business & Education

What is Social Networking?

In this context I am looking at any technology that:

1. Is open to the public – FaceBook, Twitter etc…
2. Allows people to interact and send text, files, images or movies to each other

So this excludes any internal software that runs on organizations servers – or is strictly limited to registered users only.  The reasons for this are simple, if an organization implements software on its servers or network, it has full responsibility and configuration for what can and cannot be accessed or published etc – ie full moderation.

So lets look at some of the Dangers of Social Networking in Business & Education

• Time wasting
• Irrelevance
• Bullying/ Predators
• Cheating
• Age/ appropriate content
• Scams/ Pishing/ Security issues (viruses etc) – much easier than you think on FaceBook & Twitter links!
• Privacy
• Negative comments/ Reputation tarnished/ Rumours
• Identity theft/ Burglary
• Lost Job/ Opportunity

Opportunities of Social Networking in Business & Education

• Networking
• Collaboration
• Idea generation
• Speed
• Problem solving
• Creativity
• “Just in Time” learning/ skills development
• Lead generation
• Job Search/ Head hunting
• Build relationships – with people, customers
• Builds individual user (esp learner) confidence and competence
• Transferable learning into the real world
• Data mining and research

Some Solutions to effectively use Social Networking in Business & Education

• Separate “business” or work use away from “social” contacts – Dual accounts
• Use privacy settings – learn what they do and how they work
• Consider having 2 profiles – one for “work” and one for close friends & family
• Never have too much personal data available
• Only share online what you are happy to put on a poster outside your home (unless the group/ network is security water tight)
• Never just open files unless you can confirm (live online) that they had just sent a file – i.e. you were expecting it

The only real solution is education and awareness.

I hope that this article has highlighted some of the fears as well as showing that the positives of social networking tools far out-way the dangers to an educated and savvy audience.

Single take away message…

Social networking is here to stay, and much like any core knowledge we need for our job, social media is just a new part of that job “core”.

If you are a teacher, a student, a trainer, HR professional, sales rep, engineer, doctor, nurse, paramedic, …. etc have 2 accounts – one for sharing “professional” stuff with your network.. one for family and VERY close friends only… note if there are more than 50 people on this list it is probably too big to be “personal”!

Remember – Social networks are not solutions in themselves just tools – the better and more effectively you learn to use them, the more they will do for you. Like any craft tool – practice makes… permanent – so learn effectively!

The Dangers of Social Networking in 2010

Dangers of Social Networking & Technology

As technology pervades closer and closer into every task we do we are increasingly connected in a disconnected way to the people around us. Today I received this interesting little list and thought it good enough to share:

You know you are living in 2010 when…

1. Realising you accidentally enter your PIN/ password on the microwave

2. Artificial - You haven’t played solitaire with real cards in years

3. Phone numbers - You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3

4. Instant Messaging –  You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you

5. Detached - Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don’t have e-mail addresses

6. Busy - You pull up at home after shopping and use your mobile to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries

7. Information – Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn’t have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile : )

12. You’re reading this and nodding and laughing

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn’t a #9 on this list

16. You took the time to tell people about this post by twitter

17. …. then Facebook

18. and finally plan to email this to work colleagues when you go back to the office on Monday

AND NOW U R LAUGHING AT YOURSELF

Go on, forward this to your friends. You know you want to….

#ConnectingHR – Networking, Beer and Red Knickers

Social Networking In the Real World

The morning after the night before…

Last night saw the second ever ConnectingHR “Tweetup” or networking event in Central London. The event was again organised by @joningham and @garelaos and like the first was a great success – both in terms of numbers and atmosphere. The event was sponsored by @courtenayhr

Over 80 people had registered for the event, and despite the searing London heat the majority were in attendance – and some that did not register!

The format of this was much like the first where most of the time it was free networking, with an informal “presentation” by our hosts (less than 5 mins) broke the pattern. This time the organisers did a couple of new things a tweet wall and they asked two of us to “lead” discussions:

• How to use Twitter for “virgins”
• How to get the most out of LinkedIn

I was invited to lead the session on Twitter and we had a small but vocal group of about 7 people. This was in a small way a leading to another event being planned… the Unconference in the autumn. This looks promising and I will look to both inform when it is happening and blog about it when it does.

TwitterWall

One new innovation at this event was the introduction of a “twitter stream” projected onto one of the walls in the room we were using. This was set to capture the #connectingHR tag. This had the impact of encouraging more people at this event to tweet ‘live’ than did at ConnectingHR#1. Was this a good thing or not? In many ways it was a distraction, however as the event is open to people not involved (yet) on Twitter it allowed them to see one aspect of the platform in use. The tweet wall certainly held attention at times and was itself the attention of focus on occasions (see http://bit.ly/connectHR2010

It all happened at a networking event

I found out about this on the twitter wall, and apparently (we were in a basement room of the pub near the toilets) and a woman walked into the room we were in (she had been drinking for some time) stood, wet the floor and walked out! I heard from another source that a pair of red knickers were seen in the ladies loos! so it all happens at a HR networking event! Needless to say most of the attendees of our event were better behaved!

Better Behaved – or were we?

One of the interesting things about twitter is the perceived anonymity and freedom it provides. last night I noticed on several occasions that some people had tweeted profanities and made (perhaps) inappropriate comments on to twitter using the hash-tag (#connectingHR). Twitter is an interesting environment, and personally I like to remember that whatever you put there is on the net for good. Any use of language etc will be there for people to see. If using twitter for business, what will potential customers thing of our “drunken” ramblings? or if an employer look at us as their next recruit…?

What makes this event special?

This networking event unlike many others has a great unique selling point – the majority of people that attend are “employees” – the number of “suppliers” is strictly limited. This means that it is a true social networking event, no sell, no pressure to sell. For those that are nervous or dislike “networking” (CIPD members look at this thread on networking for introverts http://bit.ly/as5Cqd) it is the ideal environment to become comfortable just talking to with people.

A big thank you

I spoke to sooooo many people – new and old contacts, if you are reading this you know who you are (too many to list here) great to catch up last night – until next time in the twitterverse or at another #connexctingHR event!

Making Twitter Work for Business – #connectingHR

Making Twitter & Networking Work for Business

At a networking event last night in London #connectingHRamonst the many discussions were several on Twitter and its use in HR and business. The event was the first independent HR based tweetup in the UK and was very successful and well attended – over 100 registered and I would estimate that approximately 60-70 people were in attendance.

One comment I heard was  “I expected it to be a room full of people on laptops and geeks, but these are real people!” – but not one (laptop) was in sight – sure occasionally people tweeted on their phone – but this was about real people building real relationships and connections. Social networking is just a gateway to real relationships – not some plastic world of not real friends. Real business was taking place but at a level of respect and trust.

So what makes twitter work for business?

Firstly we need to recognise and understand that there are several reasons why people are on twitter:

1. To market themselves/ their business
2. To market a product
3. To connect with like minded people
4. To meet with like minded people
5. To learn new things
6. To show the world they are important 
7. To try something new

And for may of us it is a blend of the above with varying priorities. As typical in the 90-9-1 “rule” some are VERY active in the environment - others are passive. All forms of interaction are valid.

What MAKES Twitter however is the ability to connect with others. At the event last night the energy in the room was palpable, a real buzz. People were networking, connecting and building relationships without the usual pressing of a hand full of business cards and “minute to win it” style sales pitches. It was meeting with people for the sake of meeting people. No real agenda. This is powerful stuff. The added advantage is that in many cases at some level we had already known each other, and knew how to make contact - an another level we were real strangers (at the beginning of the event).

Why was this better than many traditional networking events?

Traditional networking events from my experience fall in to one of two forms – the “high pressure” sell – and the “stay with the people you know” format. With those based on social networking, many of us had “met” on line, shares a tweet or two and we recognise the name. The introduction or ice breaker is done.. and real conversations can start easily. This format worked well for those that were socially confident as well as those there were less confident meeting “new” people.

Much like Twitter and other discussions, it felt right to wander around and join and leave conversations to talk with “old names” but with “new faces”..

Even if individuals were only known by reputation, it felt like meeting an old friend. (And  did that too meeting someone I have not spoken to for almost 20 years)

How to make Twitter work

The simple thing about making twitter work as a business tool is for the tweet stream to have a personality (or range of personalities). So if you are having a company based tweet stream have a personality – show you are human. Have a profile page you tweet to occasionally. Talk about your hobbies etc.

If you operate a tweet stream with several posters – encourage them to use their initial as hash tags – for example #mdm so that followers can really interact. Have a profile page for each one.

There are many many fully automated tweet streams out there and Twitter is about to change approach with its growth – and the “faceless” corporate tweet streams will slowly lose popularity and the RTs that many using twitter for marketing crave after.

Stephen shaperio on his blog has identified what he calls Twitter personalities or poker types:

• Clubs -   Methodical/ Competitive – competitive using Twitter to help them be successful
• Hearts - People – more interested in the connection with other human beings
• Spades – Analytical – those involved and interested in gathering data – more interested in topics than people/ individuals
• Diamonds - Creative – because it is new and cool

We all have a primary and secondary type.

If in business you are Diamond first and Club second – you will lose in the long run. If on the other hand you are hearts with clubs – that can be a very powerful combination.

Me… I think I am Clubs with Hearts as a secondary, I used to do a lot of Spades – but that is very much in the background now. Getting the balance of hearts and Clubs is a challenge.

So how are you going to make twitter or other social networking/ web 2.0 tools for your business now… and in the future – remember just because one web 2.0 tool works this week doesn’t mean to say it will work next week.

Addendum -

to read som more views on this event have a look at:

http://garethmjones.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/the-connectinghr-tweetup-a-real-tweet
http://strategic-hcm.blogspot.com/2010/03/connecting-hr-tweet-up.html
http://callumsaunders.blogspot.com/2010/03/connecting-hr-tweet-smell-of-success.html 
http://donaldhtaylor.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/hr-tweet-up-connectinghr/

Some of the “official” pics from the event…

Who is responsible for marketing? – all change in the business world

Who is responsible for marketing?

If we Google or Bling “who is responsible for marketing” we get marketing, directors or everyone. Indeed many thought leaders on marketing say:

“Everyone in your company should be aware of the marketing message, visions, and goals of the company, and should reflect that message in everything they do that is related to the product and your customers.”

Which is a truism, but how many organizations actually actively encourage all staff to participate. On a regular and on-going basis? My experience suggests that actually this is a fad in marketing circles and are great words but very little action.

Into web 2.0

The business world of web 2.0 with blogs, forums, wikis and micro-blogging like twitter are starting to turn the marketing world on its head.

I was on a phone call to a person I had some discussions with some months ago about a social networking platform, they called me out of the blue as they are looking for a solution to marketing a conference later in the year, and want some ideas as to how social media and social marketing could help. While we were talking, it appeared that as an organization they were taking a traditional approach – that is that one person (team) was taking responsibility for this, and yet some of the speakers are also active on the social media and networking world. they had not considered using their speakers to ‘push’ the event. To me this was a no-brainer, indeed only last Friday I did this for an event I am speaking at in early October on the use of twitter and LinkedIn for freelance consultants.

Now we need to engage our employees, customers and suppliers. Social marketing is a live version of a testimonial – a live ‘real time’ strategy. Much more powerful than the static ” I love this company because they….” type statements. Social marketing is live, real and now. It engages at an emotional level that other channels can only aspire to.

Engage and empower

The most powerful marketing force you have are your people. Do you encourage them to communicate and spread the good words about what you do? do you support there communication efforts? Its not about letting them get on with it, but to give them the information and access they need to make the marketing accessible and real to real customers – current and potential.

A few weeks ago I tweeted about a problem I had on a train, and within hours I was contacted by a person from the train company and they really did listen to my feedback. How much they did as a result i will never know – BUT and its a big one – they showed that they were prepared to listen.

Say goodbye to the ‘complaints letter’

Writing to complain is a barrier. many organizations will not even accept an email. The bigger the barrier the less feedback a firm will get. Its about making it easy. If you don’t they will ‘complain’ on twitter, facebook or bebo anyway.  Why.. because many phones are connected to this and people like to ‘vent’ at the time.  We (whether we like it or not) are in a “hear and now” society. I dont want to wait a couple of days to return home, to write a letter that will get stuck in a post strike, for the company to take 28 days to responde. the moment has passed. I wont use them for business anymore.

If we want to engage with our customers and build trust:

• make it easy,
• encourage your people to promote the great stuff you are doing,
• let them use their words to explain things, not a pre-constructed script that is ‘dead’ emotionally and not ‘owned’ by a human.

The faster you and your organization start to engage fully to the ‘here and now’ communication channels, the better your organization will be positioned in the minds of your current and future customers.

Marketing is no longer just a role for the marketing function, we all have an active and daily part to play

Modern Marketing – You don’t know what you don’t know

The world of business, sales, marketing and communications is changing, the question is are you ‘up’ with the new strategies or will you be scampering around for the scraps after the main pack have eaten?

Use of social media as a part of an organizations marketing and sales strategy should not be overlooked.

10 key questions to ask your senior managers (or yourself)

1. Do you have enough information to decide whether to ignore or engage new technologies?
2. Do you know what your competitors are doing to take customers away from you?
3. What do you know about your customers that others can also discover in the world of social networks?
4. Do you know what customers are saying about you and your brand today?
5. Do you know how easy it is for your competitors to access your customers?
6. How do you identify and build relationships with key influencers in new clients?
7. Do you have an idea about ROI and effectiveness of social networking and media?
8. Do you know how to measure improvements and success in the social networking world?
9. Have you ever thought about empowering your team to engage fully with existing and potential customers?
10. Are you able to create a social media and networking strategy that adds value to your business?

Social networking , social media and web 2.0 technologies are growing and adapting faster than at any time in the past – are you engaging or hoping that ‘it will go away’?

Barriers to entry are very low – perhaps the lowest they have ever been and with the monthly cost being less than $10 – can you afford to ignore this – no matter how large or small your organization is.

Why to use Twitter as a business marketing tool

Use a new tools in the market as a key strategy? – you must be mad!

In a changing economy, it might seem wrong to experiment with mediums such as Twitter for marketing and customer outreach. After all, the more well-established Facebook has a documented 800 million active users, while estimates place Twitter (which twitter doesn’t disclose such figures) at around 5 million users.

** update Dec 2011 – Facebook is now 800+ active users and Twitter is 100M active users

But while Twitter’s user base might seem small, the return on engagement from Twitter fans is substantial, Most Twitter users are hyper-connected, They are influencer’s and really want to share opinions with others. Many of them keep blogs. They are very different than the mainstream Facebook users.

For most companies, the decision to use Twitter will depend on the type of products or services that they offer.

Gathering Twitter wisdom from social media analysts and companies that have enjoyed success via Twitter, we’ve rounded up the key steps your company must take before it can enjoy a viable Twitter presence. In most cases, companies that started Twittering with clear objectives – or at least listened closely to the Twitter user base after they got started and adapted their strategy accordingly – have reaped the greatest benefits and (more importantly) helped their customers in the process.

 

Listen and Learn About Twitter – to use twitter as a business tool

Before you can identify the main objective for your organization’s use of Twitter, you first must understand the Twitter community and what they think of your company.

Get some search tools and start listening to the Twitter community before you do anything else and above all else listen to what they’re saying about your company and your industry.

Before you go out and set up a business based system you would be advised to set up a personal Twitter account to see what makes this community tick.

Establish Your Twitter Objectives and Metrics for Success for using twitter as a marketing tool

Like any effective marketing strategy, you need to establish what goals you hope to accomplish by being on Twitter.

The expectations you set should be two-fold. The first goal: internally justify your efforts to your company. Twitter remains a nascent technology, and in a tough economic time, you need to make a good case as to why someone should be dedicating his or her time to it, in addition to traditional marketing and customer service channels such as e-mail, web advertising (through Google) or even Facebook.

In general, companies that just push marketing deals or links to corporate press releases won’t gain much traction, experts warn.

Twitter users said, ‘we want a conversation with you, not faceless marketing.’

To build a good presence on Twitter, most companies must be responsive to questions regarding their service.

In some cases, the decision to travel the pure marketing route can be fine – as long as you’re up front about it to Twitter users,

 

Set Up Your Company’s Twitter Profile

The first step for your company’s Twitter profile will be selecting a user name. As is the case when you search for available Web URLs, your company name may already be taken by another user, either as a hoax account or because the person blogs about or follows the company closely.

In general, the more personal a company’s Twitter account appears, the better. Traditional mediums such as corporate websites, advertisements and promotions typically lack the sort of human feeling that Twitter users crave.

Twitter is not a forum to throw up press releases, your tweets should be real people who are real representatives of your company

All Twitter profiles have a field for a URL. While it might be tempting to insert your company’s homepage, this might not be a good use of the space, some recommend having a link to a custom page on your website that explains why you’re on Twitter and what you hope to accomplish by being there.

Users say businesses need to be conversational on Twitter, and you should be seen to provide value add.

Mind Your Twitter Etiquette

You should learn the rules of Twitter etiquette for individuals who use the service. Many of the same principles apply for company profiles, with a few notable exceptions.

One main difference is over the issue of following people.

• On your individual Twitter account, you should only follow people who bring you value personally.
• On a company profile, the rules change. Once people decide to follow a company’s Twitter updates, companies should generally follow them back. It shows you’re listening.

One proponent of twitter as a marketing tool said “It makes sense to follow people back in most cases, If someone walks into your store, you wouldn’t ignore them. You’d go and greet them and ask how they are.”

Ideally, it’s better to tweet publicly and avoid direct messages unless it’s absolutely necessary. Most problems or questions that people tweet about will be common, and the group can benefit from knowing the answer.

Finally, be prepared to make mistakes. The Twitter community is temperamental, but passionate. They may evangelize your product if you respond to their criticisms thoughtfully and in a way geared toward helping them. Since every message must be 140 characters or less, it’s easy to create misunderstandings. You must clarify your thoughts when necessary.

If you make a mistake, the important thing is to acknowledge it and say what you really meant, after all that’s what you’d do if you were talking to someone in person.”

Keep it balanced – business & human (“real”)

To be really effective keep your tweets not to the 140 character limit but to under 120 – this allows followers to ReTweet messages they feel are of value. You should aim for your messages to be ‘of interest’ and retweetable rather than direct sales.  Remember that while this may well be a business based twitter account – it is a human supplying data – so ensure something of the individual posting is there too – keep it human.

If all you do is sent business data then many will get bored and unfollow – keep them interested. Personally I aim for the 60-10-30 balance -

• 60% value adding
• 10% direct push sales
• 30% personal

Never just push links – you will get followers but the wont click & retweet often)

Twitter takes time, Twitter is not understood by many – but the proof is in the pudding – it is a well connected channel to market that works – it is very low cost – but to do well involved a significant time commitment (certainly at the planning stage).

based on an article originally written by C.G. Lynch at IT world 

90-9-1 rule or theory for marketing, communication & social media

Social networking contribution ratio 90-9-1

The use of social media to support marketing has increased in recent times.  How can we use this to develop our business?

Is the 80/20 rule applicable to social networks, forums and web 2.0? Is the 90-9-1 Rule the new Pareto Principle  for web 2.0 and other online environments?

Lets start by understanding that this is not a “rule”, but some say a modern “Myth of Community Participation”. To me it is a tool or guide to help manage expectations… nothing more… nothing less.

Many organisations and providers develop web 2.0 platforms to encourage contributions from employees, customers and potential customers and thus develop their site and presence. Time and time again the ration 90-9-1 appears with respect to interactions and contributions. This has also been called the 1% rule.

• 90% of users are lurkers or quiet participants/ audience (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute)
• 9%of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time (partially engaged)
• 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions (fully engaged): it can seem as if they don’t have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they’re commenting on occurs

Rather than seeing the lack of active contribution as a problem, it is far more helpful to view participation behaviour as a reflection of the variety of skills and strengths of the participants. Instead of seeing the 90% as “Lurkers”, I prefer to view them as a type of participant, that is, primarily an audience that uses and applies community content.
Some like to see this from a different perspective – 1-9-90, where:

1% are creators
9% are editors
90% are the audience (but like to believe they can contribute if they chose to)

and like any stage play the audience may clap or walk out but often that is the limit to their participation.

 

In-house systems and 90-9-1

Inside organisations: the ratio is quite different. The ratio trends toward 60% knowledge champions (people who contribute most often), so the focus needs to be on the 40% that contribute occasionally or only passively read content.

When we know what the ‘normal’ contribution levels are, we can use this to develop strategies to help people contribute, even at a simple low level. Tools such as ‘thumbs up’ or polls can easily increase participation beyond the top 10%.  The ‘trick’ is not to expect full engagement, but a simple, low risk way of adding their thoughts.

The greater the barrier – registration, adding comments etc the less likely individuals are to contribute.

Part of this is also about managing our expectations, if we put an entry up on an wiki, blog or forum, we should not expect 100′s of comments, often tracking reads and links followed is a measure of the value a page or article is providing.

 

The greater environment – participation inequality & 90-9-1

On any given user-participation site, you almost always hear from the same 1% of users, who almost certainly differ from the 90% you never hear from.  In other words 90% of the contributions to a site or community/ forum are from 1% of the population – no matter what you do 90% just wont engage.

We expect participation to be fair and equal – but it is not.

Only a tiny percentage of letter writers to the editors of our national newspapers get published. 1000s of disappointed “want to be” authors never get their manuscripts published.

 

B2B or B2C

Much of the “research” around the 90-9-1 rule has been in the arena of B2B – where a community is passionate about a concept, belief, product or service. Indeed some community providers quote interaction rations nearer to 70-25-5 and in one instance 60-30-10 . In the B2c market some say that the actual ratio of participation is nearer to 99-0.9-0.1 (see Impact Interactions).

For my own blog I am certainly a long way from 90-9-1… nearer 99.99-.01

 

Is this important?

To be honest …NO… however where it can add value is for those developing communities or spaces for interactions. If you build something and expect high levels of interactions then you are misguided – where as if you understand that less then 10% of your community are likely to proactively contribute then at least your expectations may be met!

Equality in participation – yes the web 2.0+ enables this – but as the (very) old saying goes – you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.

Make the most of social media for marketing

Ok so you are one of those people (like me) that uses social marketing sites as part of your marketing strategy. Is your approached integrated or haphazard?

Did you know that you can feed your blog posts to your twitter account or face book etc? You have to be careful about content as each is a slightly different audience, however if you can have more activity with less effort all the better.

Tools like Twitterfeed help take your blog content and put it on Twitter - great to tell the world that you have updated your blog – just dont do it more than a couple of times a day! – you aim is to inform people not swamp them.

You can use #Hash codes to help filter in or out content – so that you dont publish personal material on a business feed for example.

There has been some debate about the percentage mix of business and personal tweeting. Many say 70% personal – while others say 20%. me I am in the camp of 20%. My blog and twitter name are clearly business, but you want to know a little about the human behind the business too … right?

Equally if a business twitter, you dont want a link to a blog for every post – that just looks like and may well be spam. here is my approach – cannot say if it is right – but it is my goal:

blog 100% business – either direct in my specialism or an adjunct (I have other learning based blogs I use when visiting conferences and exhibitions.

Twitter – 70% business: one a day tip on leadership and or training/ learning & development

Once a week a major link to a blog article or useful content on a site 3:1 mine or others

20% personal – more over weekends

10% random thoughts and opinions on what is happening

What is your approach? do you integrate these platforms or keep them separate? why? share your thoughts here or links to your blog with the answers

no spam though – I have a rather good capture tool for this!

Social networking in L&D is it effective?

Most learning professionals agree that interaction is key to learning and development.

Social networking as a learning tool

Increasingly groups and communities are being developed both within our organizations and using third party sites like LinkedIn , Facebook etc for networking. But is it working? there is a considerable amount of anecdotal evidence (and some research) to show that there is a ratio for success – 90:9:1

• where one person created or initiated the environment
• nine people edit, moderate or drive the environment
• ninety people participate.

Now at first glance this looks OK, however requiring a ‘workforce’ of nine to every ninety can be a challenge. Many of the most successful communities have regular contributors (often unpaid) that act as the backbone of these communities and maintain the momentum.

Lessons for Learning and Development
So the lessons for L&D or OD functions to introduce such communities and stack the deck in favour of success is to recruit these ‘champions’ internally first. Who are the few that will lead, engage and drive the others?

Many social networking communities fail as the organisers believe that “if I build it they will come”, well unfortunately this is not true. For a new community to become established and grow it needs “pump priming” with both content and champions or editors.

Communities need investment and the investment needs to go way beyond the technology

For success in building a learning network we need to plan the activity and resource it in the same way as any other organizational change. We can see this by simply looking around the web at the forums and communities available publicly, those that work are vibrant and have individuals committed and passionate about the community and its content, those that don’t are rarely driven or actively supported and do not have a critical mass to get the ball rolling.

Research shows that it takes between 7 and 25 people to start a Mexican wave, depending on the crowd size and the shape of the stadium, in the same way we need (approximately) nine people active on a regular basis to start and maintain a learning or social community.

Summary for learning community success

• Build it
• communicate it
• engage a core population (champions)
• communicate
• keep the core team participating
• communicate – remind people
• keep the core team participating
• communicate – keep people informed of what is happening
• reward (I.e. celebrate) the champions who support the community on a regular basis.

All good ans effective change management techniques require planning, communication and resources (human and physical/ financial), and running a community for learning is a change management methodology.

With Informal learning being a strategy increasingly adopted by learning and development professionals, the use or attempted use of communities of practice will mushroom, it is up to us to ensure that when we implement such strategies we provide the organization and our learners with the maximum opportunity for success, and this means introducing and managing the environment appropriately.