Embrace change…

OK, if you’re not a “hugger” you might not know what I mean. And, sheesh (!) that headline is old school, but bear with me. As a marketing coach, a big part of my day is asking questions, so here’s a biggie…

What should you be doing tomorrow that you aren’t doing today?

Social media marketing answers.

I asked questions, maybe this YouTube video contains the answers. You be the judge. Please leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Standing out in a crowd. What crowd?

One of the biggest problems for any marketer is getting people’s attention. OK, great products, customer-focused messages, enticing offers and amazing customer service aren’t easy. But once you have all those other things, you have to do is get noticed.

Yesterday, I was reading Seth Godin’s blog. Seth knows how to get noticed, but that’s not my point… at least not entirely. He was describing his alternative MBA program. In his words, “Unaccredited, residential, free and six months long. A new way to learn about a new way of doing business.”

Most of the nine “graduates” left the program ready to start or grow their entrepreneurial companies. One, was determined to land the best job ever. What makes Susan Lewis different is her approach. She isn’t submitting hundreds of résumés (crowd), she’s inviting potential employers to apply to her (what crowd?).

Social media marketing miracle!

Balderdash. If social media marketing works for you, great. Show me the money! Thus far, nobody has. That’s why I chuckled a bit this morning when the Industry Standard Weekly Edition newsletter arrived.

Lately it seems I can’t go anywhere without running into a gaggle of social media consultants bloviating about the wonders of social network marketing. Sure, you’ve seen ‘em, too. Slick shake-and-bake “experts” promising to help you leverage the power of Twitter and Facebook to raise your profile and, inexplicably, boost your profits. But scratch the surface on most of these claims and they instantly crumble. Meanwhile, it seems the only people making any money in social media are the consultants themselves.

The Conversation Prism

The Conversation Prism

Originally uploaded by b_d_solis

And here’s what Web 2.0 looks like if you’re not one of the world’s largest, most recognized names in corporate consultancy.

See what Brian Solis has to say about his conversation prism.

What’s your story?

Personal stories can be a powerful way to communicate intangible value.

Back in high school, my sister used to tease me for having “study parties” to prepare for AP physics exams. She called me a nerd, and maybe I was, but I also knew that without those “study parties” I would be lost. I knew that I could handle the concepts of physics, but that I was awful at the math. By meeting with my classmates, I could explain the theory, and they could explain the calculations. It was all about give and take. I’ve understood the value of peer groups for a long time, so I am really passionate about building the community at ExpertCEO, an online network for senior executives and the community that inspired this blog.
– Nathalee Ghafouri, Marketing Manager, ExpertCEO

When I was involved with Vistage as a CEO group chair, I talked to potential candidates about the benefits of joining a peer group. I could have used a similar story about my days in engineering school, but didn’t think of it. Shame on me, because it clearly demonstrates the value of a peer group without sounding like a sales pitch.

Take a minute and think about the stories in your life that could help someone understand the value of what you do. They can be very powerful, and they are free.

Launch your video with TubeMogul

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Customer input from the social web.

Several months ago, I looked at some corporate initiatives to use social networking tools to interact with customers and learn what they have to say about a company’s products and services. I thought they were a bit pricy for midsize companies and predicted we would see lower cost options in the near future. The future is here.

SuggestionBox.com is currently in beta. It offers a simple, easy to use, online tool that makes it easy for customers to communicate their opinions, wants and needs and empowers companies to take action.

The pricing is right for midsize companies at $50/month or $495/year with a 30 day free trial and money back guarantee. The feature set is pretty basic on the “suggester” side. Anyone can make a suggestion or rate suggestions made by others. The company can respond to suggesters with a thank you or request for clarification. And each suggestion can be marked as implemented, coming soon, under review or filed away.

in a comment to my earlier post, an IdeaStorm manager suggested the power of their solution was on the back end. This may be so, but at $5 per user, this power requires a significantly larger investment.

Vivek Bhaskaran, CEO of Survey Analytics, developers of QuestionPro and IdeaScale commented on one of my earlier posts. He said, “I think the model of charging per user (or per idea) is NOT how we plan on marching down. We’ll have flat fee of anywhere between Free (yes), $15/Month and $199/Month.”

Here are some examples of who/how IdeaScale is being used:

www.askthespeaker.org (Politics)
www.choicehotels.ideascale.com (Large Biz)
www.buglabs.ideascale.com (Small Biz)

Who has time for social media?

I was scanning LinkedIN Answers the other day and noticed one too many gratuitous questions (like, “What’s your favorite color?”) and answers (like, “aquamarine”). Often, the answers were coming from the people who are listed as This Week’s Top Experts.

LinkedIN is a networking site for “professionals.” You’d think that professionals would want to put their best foot forward, make a good impression, start new relationships, enhance old ones.

I could understand making the effort to build one’s personal brand by helping some people out, making a good impression. I couldn’t understand what positive ROI would come from being silly in a networking context. And where do professionals get the time? So I asked a question: What do you think about people who have nothing to do but answer LinkedIN questions?

Some of the answers were interesting, especially one…

Tapping the wisdom of customers.

In The Wisdom of Crowds, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki argues that “under the right circumstances, groups of ordinary people are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.” So, I was excited to read about Dell’s Idea Storm in Laurie Clemans’ blog.

Apparently, Dell has been inviting customers to share ideas for new/improved products and services for over a year. Anyone can register, post an idea and rate (promote or demote) ideas posted by others. and see what Dell is planing to develop. According to Clemans, “the Dell Community has contributed: 8,949 ideas, promoted 615,131 times, and posted 69,456 comments.”