The New Market for Social Media Consultants
Oct 3rd
By Neicole Crepeau, Contributing {grow} Columnist
To date, most social media consultants have focused on helping organizations use social networks for marketing and customer service. But there’s a new career opportunity for social media consultants — helping your company use social technology for collaboration inside the enterprise, called social collaboration.
What is social collaboration? Think Yammer. Yammer is an enterprise social network used by employees or businesses to share, collaborate, and innovate. Microsoft’s recent purchase of Yammer is a testament to the business opportunity social collaboration offers. Last year, Forrester Research predicted that the enterprise social software market would grow to $6.4 billion in 2016, as companies added tools for internal use.
Big Benefits for Social Businesses
Businesses have good reason to pursue the use of social media tools in the enterprise. As Mark Schaefer wrote recently, a McKinsey report on social technology published this summer estimated that companies could see a 20-25% improvement in knowledge worker productivity through the use of social technology. For example, they found that making information available via social media could reduce the time workers spend searching for information by 35%. Those numbers will garner CEO and CIO attention.
The company I work for, Vizit Corporation, just completed a study of 1,100 mangers of SharePoint sites. (SharePoint is the number one social collaboration tool used in the enterprise.) Although the results will not be published until October 22, I wanted to give {grow} readers a preview of the opportunity for social media consultants.
The Enterprise Could Use Some Help
62% of the individuals we surveyed said their organization had or would have an internal social initiative within two years. 57% of those planning to implement are doing so for internal collaboration purposes. Another 35% are planning to use it for both internal collaboration and to communicate with customers/partners (primarily for customer service). Both of these are areas where an experienced consultant can help.
This momentum comes despite mixed results in their use of internal social technologies thus far. 48% in our study reported that their SharePoint social implementation was successful or very successful. That leaves 52% who could not declare success. Doesn’t that sound like an opportunity for talented social media professionals?
You’ve Got the Tools
In fact, the challenges to implementing social tools inside the enterprise are not that much different from those social media consultants encounter when working with external customers:
- How best to use the tools—When you work with clients, you probably start with business/marketing goals and then help your client determine how best to use the available social networks and social media tools to accomplish those goals. The task is similar when helping organizations understand how to use social tools internally.
- Education and training—Most social media consultants have worked with a customer whose employees weren’t familiar with social networking, and weren’t comfortable with it. Education and training are essential in both environments.
- Building communities—To get knowledge workers to adopt social tools inside the enterprise, organizations will need to proactively identify potential communities and foster them. Businesses typically think of each department as a potential community and roll-out and optimize tools for each department. In fact, though, to get full value from social technology, organizations will need to look at how to build communities across departments. According to McKinsey, part of the value of social technologies is in “lowering barriers between functional silos, and even redrawing the boundaries of the enterprise to bring in additional knowledge and expertise in ‘extended networked enterprises.’ “
- Incenting knowledge workers—Just as marketers have to find ways to incent potential customers to engage with the company on its Facebook page or LinkedIn group, businesses have to find ways to incent their workers to use the social media tools they are providing. Social media consultants can leverage all the experience that they have gained about engaging customers and apply similar techniques to engage users within the enterprise. Contests, reward systems, gamification—they are all valid tools that cutting-edge organizations are using to increase adoption of social tools by knowledge workers.
Two Challenges
There are two big chalenges for consultants wanting to enter this market: 1) Understanding the technology used for social collaboration inside the enterprise (SharePoint being a primary one, often in conjunction with Jive, Yammer, etc.); and 2) consulting with clients about the internal cultural issues that may inhibit effective use of social tools.
The technology hurdle can be addressed by education and by partnering with consulting companies who implement internal social technologies.
The cultural issues are an area that may be new to social media consultants. At issue is whether the organization’s culture is suitable for the kind of open discussion that enables effective collaboration and innovation. Forrester has identified four critical attributes of an innovative culture. Consultant may need to develop skills to help companies that aren’t optimal for social. Or, you could team up with an organizational change specialist.
Let’s face it, there’s a lot of competition in consulting for companies around social media marketing. The potential market opportunity for consulting on internal social collaboration is a big one, and that market is in its infancy. So, if you’re a social media consultant looking to grow your business, you might consider making a shift—soon. What do you think?
Neicole Crepeau is the Senior Marketing Manager at Vizit Corporation, and blogs at Coherent Social Media. She’s the creator of CurateXpress, a content curation tool. Connect with Neicole on Twitter at @neicolec
New insights on the future of search, privacy and the inevitability of social media
Oct 2nd
Last week I had the honor of attending a “B2B Marketing Huddle” in London organized by Kerry Bridge, Neville Hobson, and Simon Hughes. The content was fantastic and I wanted to share with you a few highlights from one of the keynotes speakers, Dave Coplin Chief Visioning Officer – Microsoft. Here are a few quotes from this presentation that I think will get your synaptic connections firing:
Dave Coplin of Microsoft
“The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we work and communicate so why do most people have a better user experience at home than at work? How many people try to access the web at work and get, “Computer says NO.” How can any company block the social web today?”
“Companies who build up all these policies and firewalls to keep people from using the Internet at work are just wasting their time. Are they frisking you for Sudoko books? Here’s the real reason for these policies: They don’t understand, so it’s easier to just shut it off. Social media is inevitable. There will be a tipping point for every single company.”
“It’s time to end the Era of the Dumb User. These are the people who wear their disdain of computers like a badge of honor. Today, that’s like bragging that you can’t read. IT people have helped create this because they try to control it. We need to unleash the power to everyone.”
“It seems that every year is declared the ‘The year of mobile’ but I really do think it is the year of mobile. Look at it this way. I will lend you my computer but never my smartphone. This a truly personal device that delivers personal services. It gives you a window to the digital world wherever you are, whatever you are doing. This fundamentally is changing the way we work right now.”
“Bing is blending search results with the social graph. If you don’t have relevancy you have a cold, binary, alien algorithm. Web search is a needle in a billion haystacks. Can you even find a photo on your own computer? Blending search with relationships can make the search warmer.”
“Apps and search will be merging to create entirely new offerings. Apps keep search in context. It doesn’t take you where you don’t want to be. Wouldn’t you love to have “Dave’s Friday Night App” to lead you to exactly where you want to go without being at the mercy of ‘www?’ ”
“Having access to big data is going to lead us to fundamentally different conclusions about the world. Data science is the new rock and roll. Understanding how data comes together will be important for every single business of every size. This will be a key competitive advantage for those who are early on and master it.”
“Technology will eventually disappear into the background. Screens will disappear. Social TV will connect all the screens but that is just the beginning. Every single flat surface will provide contextual information. In a few years, Minority Report will be nostalgic. Information will not be plastic and glass. Every surface will be interactive, including your skin. Your arms and fingers will be the input devices.”
“The human side of social technology is behind and this will have to evolve. It has taken 20 years to start mastering cell phone etiquette. People feel anonymity makes them safe but it makes them bullies and stupid. It’s not funny. The lack of civility jeopardizes the potential of the technology. Facebook does not cause bullying. Shitheads cause bullying.”
“Privacy is a really difficult issue because the line between personal and private is different for every person. All we can do is be transparent about what we do. The ultimate search service is like getting the ‘usual’ at your favorite restaurant or pub. You can have local, personal service wherever you go, whatever store you visit. We all need to approach privacy as a journey and we are all involved in that.”
“The educational systems are not keeping up with the real world. We need to be teaching SKILLS not tools. If all you do is teach tools, you will continually teach obsolescence. Your education will be useless. We must be educating children for jobs that do not yet exist.”
“Critical thinking is the most important skill as we move forward and we’re losing it. Are you going to be satisfied living a Wikipedia life or will you seek to lead life that is based on something that is true?”
“Be human. Nobody cares about your company. How do I convince people to wake up and care what the second biggest search engine is doing today? We got our biggest Twitter following ever when we told jokes during National Cheese Week. I can’t talk about search all day every day. Don’t just engage — enchant. Do the unexpected. Connect on a level of basic human emotion — to our friends, our partners, our customers.”
“Here’s a wonderful example of a company being human. Marks & Spencer took a suggestion from one of their customers that they feature a Downs Syndrome child as a catalogue model. And they did it. Beautiful, moving. Human.”
I hope these quotes get your brain turning as much as they did for me. What has an impact on you? What got you thinking? Share a comment, won’t you?
35 experts weigh-in: How we create influence on Facebook
Sep 30th
In the “real world,” a person might have power and influence through their position on an organizational chart or through some elected position. But on the Internet, we HATE rules. We HATE structure. And we sure don’t need any org chart.
And yet, people do become influential on the Internet don’t they? I’ve written quite a bit about the special opportunity we all have to create influence through our content. But beyond content, I was interested to know what people thought it took to gain influence on the social web. So I asked a few of my friends …
What do you think it takes to become powerful on Facebook?
I think you’ll enjoy their answers:
Be Useful
JAY BAER, President, Convince & Convert: ”Be a Youtility. Facebook forces companies and people to compete for attention pixel-by-pixel. That’s unprecedented. You can have all the cute cats and cool photos you want, but ultimately usefulness and relevancy are the keys to success.”
RANDY GAGE, Author, Risky Is the New Safe: “Influence comes from value – creating a FB community that brings value to the people who participate there.”
IAN CLEARY, CEO, RazorSocial: “Creating influence on Facebook involves identifying your niche and building a personal and meaningful relationship with existing influencers, helping them grow their influence and not expecting anything in return.”
JASON FALLS, CEO, Social Media Explorer: “Be consistently useful. Isn’t that the key to influence anywhere?”
Be Visual
C. C. CHAPMAN, Author, Amazing Things Will Happen: ”Share visual items that instantly create an emotional response from the viewer so that they feel compelled to like, comment or share immediately.”
KERRY GORGONE, Course Director, Internet Marketing at Full Sail University: “Include a photo with every post or, better yet, several. One study indicated that posts with multiple photos increased engagement 1290%!”
BERNADETTE JIWA, of Striking Truths: “I think one of the things that’s overlooked about FB is that you don’t have to have a huge presence there yourself to drive ‘traffic’ back to your blog. We create outstanding visual images that people like to share on Facebook, driving traffic back to our own website.”
Be Generous
LIZ STRAUSS, Founder and Owner, SOBCon, Successful-Blog.com: “Help other people be visible and valued. When you find something great and valuable, don’t just “like” what you see. Tell the people who made it why you like it and pass it on. Share great work and help the people who created it grow. Do that often and with pleasure. You’ll attract generous, powerful people who value great work.”
BILLY MITCHELL, President, MLT Creative: ”If anyone you’d like to do business with takes a second to like you (and your business) on Facebook, don’t blow it. Annoy your new friends with hype and you’re history.”
DJ WALDOW, Founder and CEO, Waldow Social: “In order to create power and influence, it’s imperative to speak like a human, to be helpful, and to share knowledge with others.”
MARGIE CLAYMAN, Director, Client Development, Clayman Advertising, Inc.: “Instead of worrying about creating content, prioritize sharing and commenting on the content others create.”
JENNIFER KANE, Principal, Kane Consulting: “Proactively and strategically build your network, and then lavish those people with attention and empathy so that each one feels like the star of their online life — which seems to naturally compel people to want to make you the star of yours, in return.”
Be Real
SHELLY KRAMER, Founder and CEO, V3 Integrated Marketing: “Just. Be. Human. And to me, being human means being a trusted resource, as well as being interesting, funny, compassionate, interested in others, supportive, informative, helpful, appreciative, etc. You get my drift. And this is where so many people go wrong. They try to do something different online than they do in person. But the brands, large and small, who are successfully using Facebook to connect with their customers are doing just this. They are being human.”
SHONALI BURKE, Vice President, Digital Media and Marketing, MSL Washington, D.C.: “If you know who you’re talking to, you’ll know how likely they are to respond when you ask them for/to do something. So get to know your audience; if it worked for Edward Bernays, it’ll work for you.”
STEVE FARNSWORTH, of The @Steveology Blog: “Have a distinct, candid, and thoughtful opinion/point of view, and be transparent on your reasoning for it. However, if you’re presented with new information that changes that opinion, openly admit your new position and why you changed it.”
SEAN MCGINNIS, Founder, 312 Digital: “Treat Facebook as a channel where you conduct thousands of one on one conversations. Real influence is built one person at a time.”
GLEN GILMORE, Principal, Gilmore Business Network: “Sow influence on Facebook the same way you would in “real life”: show that you care, that you can be trusted, that you listen and share — and that you are a leader both in what you say and do.”
Be Surprising
MARISA PEACOCK, Chief Strategist, The Strategic Peacock: “In order to create power and influence on Facebook, it’s essential to provide fans with an experience that they can’t get from any other company touchpoint — not from your website, or Twitter, or Pinterest. A successful FB page creates a value-added bonus that gives fans a reason to stay connected and engaged. ”
ELIZABETH SOSNOW, Managing Director, Bliss Integrated Communication: “To gain influence on Facebook, create an emotional narrative arc that can be broken down into daily mini-stories. Structure your stories so they satisfy at least one of these four filters: surprise, humor, excitement and inspiration.”
JESSICA NORTHEY, Digital Host and Strategist, FingerCandyMedia.com: “No matter what you think, YOU will not be relevant and/or liked by EVERYBODY so shoot straight from the hip, get to know and learn about YOUR audience, find out what is important to THEM and never ever ever be boring.”
JAYME SOULATI,, PR and marketing strategist: ”Facebook requires filters to target the audience with whom you want to engage. Much like LinkedIn groups, creating specialized communities, or better yet, joining them, provides more powerful relationship building with those who have the same/similar objective. Use those groups to show authority and balance that with smart questions, too. ”
JON BUSCALL, Communications Consultant, Jontus Media: “Surprise your audience with something different. Familiarity can breed contempt.”
BILL STRAWDERMAN, “The Marketing Bard” and Executive Director, AT&T Digital Marketing and Social Media:
“Serve at the pleasure of friends,
Inspired by what your care lends.
In the kitchen of minds,
Your ideas further bind
The weak ties – which grow strong in the end.”
Be Consistent
LEO WIDRICH, Co-Founder, Buffer: “There is one key thing we have seen from our data analyzing 1 million Facebook updates: Whenever the frequency of daily postings goes over 5 posts per day, the reach and engagement drops significantly. The best results were achieved with 2 daily updates, one being around 11am for the most important timezone your fans are in and another posting being at 5pm.”
NATE RIGGS, of Social Business Strategies: “Lots of bigger companies who are building and managing fan pages stop responding after 5 pm. This is dumb. To create real influence on Facebook, community managers need to be present when the fans are ready to talk. Influence is created when you can solve a problem or answer a question when it happens.”
NAVEEN KRISHNAMURTHY, CEO, RIVA Solutions, Inc: “The key to creating power and influence on Facebook is to have a consistent message over longer period of time that is infectious to the targeted community. Thus the audience wants to move past window shopping and open the door and come in!”
GREGORY POUY, European blogger and digital strategist: “Focus on one subject/community that is relevant to your company and to create and give useful content for these people, respecting their own code, meeting them in the real life as often as possible and to take time, not expecting a short term financial ROI.”
KATHI KRUSE, Automotive Social Media marketing consultant at Kruse Control: “Know what your customer wants and give it to ‘em.”
Engage Thoughtfully
MICHAEL A. STELZNER, CEO and Founder, Social Media Examiner: “If you want to have raving fans on Facebook, simply reply when they post on your Facebook wall. You’d be surprised how far a human response goes in building brand loyalty.”
MITCH JOEL, President, Twist Image-Blogger, Podcaster, Author, Six Pixels of Separation: “Let keep this short and succinct: instead of getting people to “like” you, why not go out and “like” people? It’s radical I know, but it’s true. Power and influence won’t come from the amount of people who like you. Power and influence will come from being real with the people you’re truly interested in connecting with.”
TOM WEBSTER, Vice President, Strategy, Edison Research: “*Ask* your Facebook followers what kinds of content they would expect/need to see from your company (or your vertical/industry) in the future on Facebook, reward them for answering, and then do that thing.”
DANNY INY, The Freddy Kreuger of Blogging: ”The key to success with Facebook is investment; giving the people you want to reach repeated opportunities to engage in a way that is fun, and habit-forming.”
ROBERT ROSE, Strategist in Residence, Content Marketing Institute: “In my work with brands on both the B2C and B2B side, “active listening” is one of the keys to success on Facebook. Too many brands treat the platform as a publishing platform. And, it’s not just monitor/response. That, frankly, is just “hearing”. Active Listening is consciously hearing, understanding and responding in a way that communicates to the person that they are actually being heard.”
GINI DIETRICH, Founder and CEO, Arment Dietrich: “Ask questions! People LOVE to talk about themselves so if you ask them questions, you’ll find some serious engagement. The questions can range from “what’s your favorite Thanksgiving side dish” to fill in the blank questions. For instance, on our page, we recently asked, “The most overlooked marketing tactic is… ” and “What was the best thing that happened to you this weekend?” While not everything we ask is business-related, it definitely keeps us top-of-mind with our clients, prospects, and candidates.”
Wow. Some great ideas here! Many thanks to these friends who contributed so generously to this project!
I conducted these interviews as part of my research for the upcoming Facebook Marketing Success Summit. If you’d like to hear the presentation as well as insights from marketing stars such as Mari Smith, Dave Kerpen and Amy Porterfield, click on the link and check it out. Should be awesome.
What intrigues you about the insights in this post? Do you agree? What would you add?
Illustration courtesy Bigstock.com
What makes a perfect B2B blog post?
Sep 29th
I wanted to let you know about a new resource for all you hard-working B2B bloggers out there. The amazing and progressive Eloqua company sponsored me to create The Grande Guide to B2B Blogging and it really turned out to be a sensational piece of work. It’s full of new tips and tricks to make your company blog sing and do a happy dance.
One of the coolest things is that they hired the Jess3 design shop to create the look, including some killer infographics including this one on the characteristics of the perfect blog post. It’s my first official kick-ass infographic:
Welcome to {grow}
You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow.
Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here.
-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
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