Social Is Sales Caffefine! Get Bold!
Get Bold! Use Social To Drive Up Your Sales Results!
Social media is changing everything. I don’t have to tell you (or Jeff Gitomer who wrote Social Boom!) that Social media will change the way we live and work.
Get Bold is a Must Read because:
- It shares advice from a business leader who has leveraged Social Media to drive ROI in her businesses.
- It has an actionable framework to help you do something, not just read something. The Social Business Agenda has been used in over 64 countries for business success!
- The story is told with over 70 case studies from companies in B2B, B2C, small, medium, and large, and every industry and country.
- It is about real ROI. Did you know that on average adding Social into your sales process increases your sales by 15% according to a McKinsey Study?
- It recognizes that transformation takes more than luck, technology or prayer. It takes a culture. Afterall, Culture eats strategy for Lunch!
Adding social to your sales process makes you more competitive.
As an example of what you will learn in the book, read this real case study!
In IBM, our ibm.com team must attract a high volume of leads from a new set of customers. Since Social has become a tool for getting information on products and services, we wanted to explore how to leverage word of mouth. For instance, after a Twitter search or deeper conversation in a LinkedIn group or forum, potential buyers might ask companies for more information, but they also often turn to their peers, other clients and trusted advisors.
So our ibm.com team decided to go social. Our inside sellers drove prospects to their Rep Pages –- personalized ibm.com pages that play a “virtual business card” role for inside sellers. These pages have relevant information to clients, enhance the relationship, and give clients one-click access to interact with their reps.
After training on how to engage and nurture potential clients, the ibm.com team built Twitter profiles to establish a presence in the social networking world. The ultimate objective of this pilot was for sellers to use social media to add value to conversations and build a pipeline of leads.
We (IBM) also worked with an outside firm to identify the most prominent influencers in the our space, so sellers could then follow them and comment on or retweet their posts and learn and connect. We developed a unique engagement strategy for each influencer, based on their activity and what they were saying.
To make it easy to maintain their Twitter presence, sellers also have a social message calendar, accessible via the feed reader function within Lotus Notes. The calendar features time-sensitive messages reps can tweet, with enough content for three tweets a day.
Over a 7 month period, these ibm.com teammates increased their Twitter followers by 5X
In the first two weeks of this effort, sellers’ Rep Page visits rose by 106 percent –thanks to a systematic pattern of Twitter mentions. The sellers reached 1.9 million contacts.
As we move ahead, social selling success will be reflected by the rep’s Klout score, which gauges influence in the social world, an increase in the number of direct Twitter followers, and relationships developed with key influencers.
I’d love your comments and feedback on “Draw Up Your AGENDA,” provides a showcase of complete Social Business AGENDA case studies with a summary on each workstream your company will need to complete. See a sneak peek of the 10 top lessons of using Social Media to your advantage!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EneTBPnwtKI]
Many thanks to Jeff Gitomer for his mentorship on writing this book!! He is SUPER!
Levels of Maturity for Communities
Communities are essential for Social Businesses. All communities go through a community maturity model.
1. Potential: Planning phase of maturity. It typically involves setting up the community elements required for long term success such as roles and responsibilities, strategy, mission, membership planning and activities.
2. Formation of the community. Having a great community manager is a key factor of success. During the formation, the initial members and influencers
3. Building and Evolving. The community builds and evolves as it forms. The best communities stick to their goals but evolve in the way they reach them. Typically building and evolving involves driving traffic to community and increasing member participation. The topic of content curation is also one that grows and questions of contribution of content and consumption is reviewed. The community may review how to improve quality of content and how to train the leaders.
5. Adaptive. This final phase is where the community now takes on the personality of the members. It enables the community manager to drive the goals to the next level.
At IBM, we do Health Checks for our communities.
- Ensure the communities have the design for success
- Clearly defined strategy and active plans
- Produce Healthy communities
- Utilize the Brokerage Service to ensure long term vitality and maturity of the community
Happy Thanksgiving Week! Give thanks for your mobile device!
Happy Monday!
Let's have some fun this Thanksgiving as there is so much to be thankful for!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlYsuRfFe9s&feature=youtu.be]
One Week Before Black Friday .. did you know Social's role?
Holiday season is upon us! Black Friday is one week away. I am already planning my Thanksgiving dinner, my Christmas cards and caroling, and New Year's Plans!
So let's start thinking about this holiday season!
Did you know that people use social differently during the holiday weeks?
They increase their searches on social networks around products and potential gifts, recipes, and fun. This typically occurs starting now through early January. Their use of mobile goes up using the mobile device to show online and compare when they go into the store.
And don't discount Twitter it plays such a role! So get ready!!!
Top 3 Social Media Accidents and how to avoid them!
I was driving home tonight and had to avoid a highway due to an accident. It got me thinking about how to avoid Social Accidents.
The Three Most Common Social Accidents:
1. Talking only about your offering, service, product. Social media is about forming relationships and every relationship is about both listening and speaking!. Did you know that you can spot a healthy relationship by paying attention to how well the two people listen to each other!. Don't have an accident and have everyone avoid you by only talking and not listening. Share other's content and promote others' ideas as well as your own.
Action: If you communicate 6 things socially, 4 of those 6, or 67% should be showcasing content from your influencers. The other items you should be showcasing are your Point of View or Subject Matter Expertise . Something of value!
2. Being inconsistent. What an accident occurs when you have a professional picture on LinkedIn but a causal beach pic on your facebook? Be consistent with your brand just as you would consistently in person. Remember, every experience with your brand is non neutral so make each one count toward your brand goal.
Action: Think through purposefully what you want your brand to stand for. Always ask "is what I am doing right now consistent with that brand value"
3. Not having a social media policy. Companies who do not have a policy usually do not have strong employee usage of social because no one knows what they can and cannot do. A policy empowers employees to speak on your brand's behalf. And employees are your biggest brand ambassadors!
Action: Create a Social Computing Policy! Check out IBM's! http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html
What a Social Media First Aid Kit would look like ...
I went to pick up my daughter tonight at basketball practice, and I spotted a First Aid Kit. Inside were the right tools, an instruction training manual of what to do when, and medicines with a timetable of when to take them.
It got me thinking about what would be in a Social Business First Aid kit! Here's my top 3!
1. The Right Tools based on what you are trying to cure!! If your social strategy is not working, you need to check out the tools you are using. For instance, Pinterest tends to be very image focused , Google + tends to be more used by men, and LinkedIn tend to be focused on business users. Knowing who you are trying to attract and add value too, is critical for success.
2. Skills and training. I think it is essential to have your team training on social. Lunch and learns, learning by experimentation, and other ways are required to execute a successful strategy.
3. Ways to listen and determine key influencers . Just like a stethoscope and thermometer signals where there are good signs or a problem, every social strategy must include a way to Listen and to determine the right influencers to engage. I have been playing with several tools lately to engage the right audience like Klout.com, Communi.it and others. Commun.it even suggests the right doses and timings for interactions.
Here's a real case study from IBM on these 3 elements!
In IBM, our ibm.com team must attract a high volume of leads from a new set of customers. Since Social has become a tool for getting information on products and services, we wanted to explore how to leverage word of mouth.
We determined that for a focused product, that Twitter and LinkedIn were tools these buyers used most frequently. For instance, after a Twitter search or deeper conversation in a LinkedIn group or forum, potential buyers might ask companies for more information, but they also often turn to their peers, other clients and trusted advisors.
So our ibm.com team decided to go social. Our inside sellers drove prospects to their Rep Pages –- personalized ibm.com pages that play a “virtual business card” role for inside sellers. These pages have relevant information to clients, enhance the relationship, and give clients one-click access to interact with their reps.
After training on how to engage and nurture potential clients, the ibm.com team built Twitter profiles to establish a presence in the social networking world. The ultimate objective of this pilot was for sellers to use social media to add value to conversations and build a pipeline of leads.
We (IBM) also worked to identify the most prominent influencers in the our space, so sellers could then follow them and comment on or retweet their posts and learn and connect. We developed a unique engagement strategy for each influencer, based on their activity and what they were saying.
To make it easy to maintain their Twitter presence, sellers also have a social message calendar, accessible via the feed reader function within Lotus Notes. The calendar features time-sensitive messages reps can tweet, with enough content for three tweets a day.
Over a 7 month period, these ibm.com teammates increased their Twitter followers by 5X
In the first two weeks of this effort, sellers’ Rep Page visits rose by 106 percent –thanks to a systematic pattern of Twitter mentions. The sellers reached 1.9 million contacts.
As we move ahead, social selling success will be reflected by the rep’s Klout score, which gauges influence in the social world, an increase in the number of direct Twitter followers, and relationships developed with key influencers.
Your mother told you "Social Skills" mattered! She was right!
Your mother told you "social Skills" mattered! She was right! A Harvard Business Review survey showed that only 12 percent of companies using social media think they do so effectively. It will very important that companies train their employees on social usage, and hire the right set of people to drive social. For instance, not just community managers, but social analytics specialists, social innovation officiers, and more. Make sure you don't forget to focus on these skills!
And these skills need to extend into the board room. Meet the new C Suite! Full of T shapped Skills! Social and social tools means that CMOs need to know more about Technology, and that CIOs need to understand more about how to engage clients, and marketing. With CEOs, according to IBM's CEO Study, understanding that social will be the #1 way to engage clients by 2015, it is imperative that both roles learn more about the broader equation.
Social inside a company's 4 walls continues to outpace external. Why? Employee engagement drives client engagement. According to IBM's latest trend study, 43% of clients are now using social inside of their 4 walls. 41% use it more externally. This trend will continue as the economics drive the need for stronger employee engagement. Social drives higher engagement when employees can leverage social to innovate inside the company. But first they need the skills.
Have you developed a skills plan?
Social and your personality test!
You have to watch this one! This behavior way of blending recommendations will have a major impact on the market!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MONyLgrnPP8&feature=youtu.be]
