Part of what the Purple Stripe training team teaches in our Small Business seminars is finding the right tool for the job. In this case, finding the right social media platform for your company’s marketing needs. For now, everyone has their eye on The Big Three (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) but we are quick to show that there are hundreds more tools available (and hundreds that have gone away…) Each tool has it’s own way of working, both technically and culturally, and each requires a unique approach to get the most benefit.

Twitter has evolved as a great place for news, entertainment, updates, and general chit-chat. Facebook is great for forming (or rekindling) relationships, social gaming, and socializing. LinkedIn is all business networking and job fulfillment. What goes on in one platform is generally ill-received on others. For example, Farmville would not be tolerated at all in LinkedIn and similar games have failed in Twitter.  Connecting with coworkers, past or present, may be frowned upon in Facebook where things stay fairly personal, but on LinkedIn not only is it expected, the platform actually helps you locate, connect and recommend each other.

Outside of the people you connect with on a social platform, the content you share should be unique across the networks.  Twitter excels at sending text messages and links because of the text-only media and character limitations.  Facebook is amazing at sharing multimedia content such as pictures or video – in addition to text and links.  LinkedIn is wonderful for sharing text and links in a professional business networking capacity.  The problem with these tools is that sometimes they are used to promote exactly the same message to very different user populations.

Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

It is very easy to post the same message to all three platforms.  But should you?  Are you really serving each community to the best of their needs?

Updates from Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook can all cross-pollinate, sometimes resulting in messages infinitely looping between the three.  Messages from Twitter about what movie you just streamed from Netflix is automatically posted to your LinkedIn profile.  Foursquare checkins go to Twitter and Facebook, and then by association LinkedIn.  How is that helping anyone besides YOU?  Do the professionals on LinkedIn care what movie you are watching? Probably not.

There are ways to cross-post without becoming annoying.  For example, LinkedIn allows you to only bring in Twitter messages with #in.  Hootsuite allows you to enter in a status message and choose exactly what platform you would like to publish it on.  Our advice is be selective in where and what you post on each social network platform.  Not sure how to divide and conquer?  Create a unique strategy for each platform that accommodates your business goals and master social marketing plan.  Take a step back and determine who follows you (or that you want to follow you) on each platform, zero in on their top three needs from you, and deliver.

Done right, the interaction and value you get from each space will increase by having the right conversation on the right platform with the right people for the right reasons.

Starbucks’ Vice President of Brand, Content and Online, Chris Bruzzo, appeared at Mashable Media Summit today and gave away a bit of a ‘secret’ – he revealed that last year’s Free Pastry Day drove more than one million people to stores to grab some free baked goods.  This promotion was almost entirely conducted via social media channels.  According to Mashable (who hosted the Summit), Starbucks has managed to dominate on Facebook, made news as the first company to offer a nationwide Foursquare deal, and was selected to try out Twitter’s Promoted Tweets ad platform before other advertisers will have the chance.

Love them or hate them, Starbucks is the brand to beat on social media channels.  Or at least the brand to take a closer look at and see what creative ideas you can glean from them…

It’s been said time and time again for a business to succeed in social media, they need to understand their customers.  Designing and incorporating a strategy for social media isn’t a checklist, it’s an evolution.  Jumping in and talking is fine if  you are a person, but as a company, there are some things to consider first.

1. It’s important to understand the culture of  the platforms you are interested in engaging on.  Fark or Digg has an entirely different persona than LinkedIn.  If you are interested in talking to college-humored males with a penchant for Photoshopping funny pictures – Fark and Digg are the place for you (hey, they spend a lot of money…)  Looking for sales professionals?  LinkedIn is where you need to be.  Know your audience, know your platform.
2. Don’t start with the technology – start with the goals.  Just this week a project came across our desk from a company looking to enter social media. They had already determined what technology and social media sites they wanted to be on, without having the slightest idea who they wanted to talk to, what they wanted to talk about, and who actually hangs out on these sites.  Backwards.  Goals first, tactics second.
3. Don’t just talk about your business.  Be a person first and have fun.  While it seems counter productive to chit-chat about personal items on company time, the fact that you present yourself as a human being goes a long way to building trust.  No one is saying tell everyone what you eat for lunch every day, but sharing some volunteer efforts your company engages in or publicly thanking co-workers for decorating your office (and sharing a quick picture) for your birthday shows you aren’t just about the end sale.
4. You have to be a listener, not just a broadcaster.  Ever take part in a conversation where the other person talks about themselves for 20 minutes, and when you finally get a word in, they are gazing over your shoulder looking for the next person to pitch to?  Try practicing ‘active listening‘ on the social channels before starting to start your own agenda.
5. Does it blend?  How does social media fit with your entire PR & Marketing plan?  Social media marketing is a subset of a larger comprehensive plan to launch your company into a new era of customer communication. Abandoning everything that’s worked in favor of something you know little about is a guaranteed failure.  Stick with what works, and add to it.

This article is part of a series on social media success.

What’s the ROI of your telephone?

Your phone is a critical tool to communicate and listen, just like social media is a tool.  Who ever said that social media is a direct pipeline of prime leads for your sales team?  Twitter isn’t a fat database of people sitting around waiting for you to pitch to them.  Facebook is not an e-commerce site.  Yes, you can make money from social channels (Dell claims $3 million in sales from Twitter alone).  When planning your entry into social media, items like ROI need to be addressed early and revisited often.  On the other hand, we are not saying that efforts in social media shouldn’t earn money.  How you earn (or save) money for your company should always be taken into account, but sometimes items like brand awareness, employee retention, idea generation, or customer satisfaction don’t have hard numbers or formulas to follow.

So how do you make money from social media?  It depends on why you use social media.  If you are using it as a customer service outreach (Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us is an amazing book on the topic) then not only can you save hard money on the cost of an employee’s time picking up the phone, but the frustration and negative word of mouth so rampant with bad customer experiences.  How much money does it take to win back (assuming you even can) a customer that you’ve lost due to poor service?  How many customers do you loose even before the sale due to weak brand awareness or negative word of mouth?

Utilizing social media for sales generation?  Be there *before* the sale.  Offer help even if it means suggesting a competitor’s product.  Ask questions.  Listen.  Do more than sell – do anything but ‘sell’.  Be human.  Be well-rounded and showcase other facets of your company.  Talk about philanthropic efforts.  Provided your product or service is top-notch, all this is building trust between you and “people that may-or-may-not someday purchase your product or refer someone to you that might.”  Funny thing is, social media being structured the way it is, everyone gets to witness your efforts online and draw their own opinions on your company based on interactions they see you have with others.  In the past, the sales transaction took place ‘behind closed doors’ and not many people outside of the people involved saw the process.  That means a very limited amount of people could form their own opinions on your company outside of their own experiences.  Now the entire world can see how you treat customers, before, during, and after the sale.  The idea is scary to a good number of companies that aren’t used to operating in the new social economy.  Those companies that ‘get it’ realize that you could never put a price on (let alone actually pay to have done) the amount of positive exposure you get on social platforms.

How about using social media for talent acquisition? Product research and development?  Competitive analysis? Each group has very unique goals and should have very different strategies to using social media.

Sometimes the goal isn’t even to make money, but to save it.  Pepsi saved $20 million dollars on the 2010 Superbowl and put it towards the year-long Pepsi Refresh Project.  PepsiCo is getting much more than $20 million dollars in media coverage from the move.  Pepsi can afford to take chances like this, but can your company?  Social media is supposed to be a supplement to already successful outreach programs.  Dropping newspaper ads (if they work) to launch a Facebook Fan Page is not a smart business move.  Dumping your email campaigns (if they work) in favor of Twitter is a setup for failure.  Incorporating social media means having to take a good hard look at what you are involved with right now and cutting every single item that operates in the red.  For example, car dealerships may cringe at the thought of abandoning newspaper ads.  Just because your company (or your industry) has always done it a certain way – doesn’t mean you need to keep doing it that way.

End result, if you don’t know what your goals are, you will never reach them, social media endeavor or otherwise.

Breaking News on NJ Social Media Hall of Fame

Voting begins today until Sun. April 25, 11:59pm EST to choose the NJ Social Media Hall of Fame Inductees! Vote only once, by leaving one comment on the Facebook Fan Page (must be a fan to leave a comment), naming your choice of Finalist (hopefully Lynette!!) & briefly explain why they should be inducted into the NJ Social Media Hall of Fame.

List of Finalists to choose from (in reverse alphabetical order by Twitter user name):

• @tweetamar Itamar Kestenbaum
• @podcaststeve Steven Lubetkin
• @njplaygrounds Sheila Sayah
• @njfamilymag Lucy Banta
• @lynetteradio Lynette Young
• @leoraw Leora Wenger
• @jessicalevin Jessica Levin
• @jerseybites Deborah Smith
• @hhrmediagroup Don Povia
• @AmyVernon Amy Vernon

This article is part of a series on social media success from Purple Stripe Productions.

To put it bluntly, numbers matter.

Collecting numbers just for the sake of having numbers isn’t the goal.  Often times the quality of “the numbers” is overlooked.  Easy question – would you rather have 10,000 ‘fans’ that don’t really care what you are about and ignore you, or 500 ‘fans’ that are actively seeking information on your products or services?  Of course even with 500 ‘fans’ you can get impatient and wonder why your widget isn’t flying off the shelf or customers aren’t lined up out the door.  Christopher Penn has always said if you are selling Gulfstream G5 jets, and only need to sell one every two years to live like a king – you only need two followers, one of which is ready to buy a jet, and one that knows someone that wants to buy a jet.  You need to find the right numbers.

Just as you most likely didn’t have people banging down your door the day you opened for business, social media channels take time (and trust) to cultivate.  Today’s companies have no patience for waiting for growth.  Some remember the good ol’ days of double-digit growth and customers lined up outside their door with bags of money.  Some think that offline success translates directly into online success.  Some see social media is an instant ticket to success.  More yet assume old tactics and campaigns can be flipped to social platforms and work (even if they didn’t work before).  You not only have to think outside the box, you need to take a match, set the box on fire, roast marshmallows, then build a new one.  Hard work? Yes. Difficult? No.

If you’ve listened to what people have to say, you will know how to treat your numbers and how to grow them.  The key to all of this is to be sure you NEVER treat your ‘fans’ as numbers.  It’s important never to assume just because someone ‘fans’ or follows you, you have permission to spew as much marketing copy at them as you please.  Having someone follow you in social media circles merely means they are receptive in watching you and seeing if you can provide value or solutions to their life.  If you can’t produce, they ignore you, un-follow/friend, or worse yet, tell *their* friends how invaluable you are to them.

All this listening is boring. We want ACTION!  We want followers!  When do we get to talk about how awesome we are!?  We want sales driven directly from Twitter and our Facebook page.  We don’t have time to actually listen and try to provide value to people so they will fan & follow us.  We have *real* work to do during the day.  Do you expect me to hang out on Twitter all day?  My boss will think we are goofing off.

If you are not listening, and not contributing, why would people want to follow you?  What’s in it for them?  Every single time you post an update or tweet, ask yourself that question.  Telling people what you have on sale, what your product offering is, what award your firm just won – this isn’t providing value to them.  Your ‘peacocking’ (our team’s term for trying to brag online and think people will be impressed, think your important, and want to follow you).  Where’s the value?  Having 20% off of all toddler shoes this week is fine, but if you offer 20% off all toddler shoes this week when you come in and have your child professionally fitted benefits them.  See the difference?

So how do you find the right numbers?  You listen. You help. You promote others. You offer value, information, and assistance.  You LISTEN (it’s worth repeating).  By listening and responding, without asking for or expecting a sale in return, is how you grow your numbers.   Of course there is much more to gaining quality ‘fans’ and followers (depending on your goals and industry – to name just two of two dozen variables) but listening is always a rock solid start.  By showing that you are a good listener and can provide value (“what’s in it for me?”) and interesting content – THEN you may have earned a ‘fan’ or follower.  The minute you start being noise instead of information – you’re history.

Start by searching within the platforms you are looking to build a presence on.  What to search for?  People that are having conversations about your company, your products, lateral industries, key phrases related to your industry, you competitors, your geographical area, or anything loosely linked to your interests.  Think of it like this, what phrases or ideas would you be listening for during a conversation at a (in-person) networking event to help identify someone as a prospect to talk to?

Search.Twitter.com and Facebook.com/search are the first places to go to start seeing what conversations are taking place. Need something more comprehensive?  Google Alerts is the best (free) option for searching the billions of pieces of information that show up every day on the web.  Once you outgrow the basic free tools, platforms such as Radian 6 help you not only search out information, but help manage your brand online and streamline your team’s outreach efforts.

The more people that are genuinely interested in you, the more sucessful you will be in social media.  Success doesn’t always equal money, success means meeting the goals you’ve laid out for your company during the strategy process.  You did think about why you need to be active in social marketing and what you want to accomplish?  Right?

This article is part of a series on social media success from Purple Stripe Productions.

Taking a step back, listening, and learning are all nice in theory, but ‘lazy’ in the business world.  Action produces results.  Listening is inaction.  We define success in how quickly we rack up the number of fans, friends, status updates, ‘likes,’ and re-Tweets.  Numbers we can count and reproduce on a chart.  How can you be considered successful if you gained less fans this week than last?  How can you justify to your management that your efforts are successful if you LOST a few followers?

The listening precursor is a real sticking point in a good number of companies.  You can see the results of not listening in multiple facets of a company.  Customer Service is reactive to problems and always on the defense.  The Sales team struggles to keep up with unique product offerings until the demand of customers hits the tipping point.  Research & Development work in silos far removed from end users.  Marketing follows a safe and predictable path that fits nicely within the niche and genre of their industry.  Human Resources is seen as the ‘heavy’ in the company.  Information technology departments treat employees like teens that cannot be trusted with the Internet for fear of rampant porn viewing and personal online socializing resulting in millions of dollars of lost revenue due to unproductive worker bees.

The bottom line – handing in a status report with slow-gaining numbers is perceived as a failure in Corporate America.  Fast. Quick. Instant.  NOW.  Because the technology (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.) produce instant content, the perception is that success should be instant as well.  Trust takes time.

Solutions are easy to identify, but hard to implement.  Change is hard. It’s disruptive.  It’s unproven.

What if Customer Service spoke up and talked to R&D and Sales about making changes to products that they see need work?  Would customers get better products and services faster?  Would the company save money in research and marketing by producing products that the public is already asking for?  How many customers could you keep from moving to a competitor?

What if Sales took ideas from customers and (even if it wasn’t a viable avenue to pursue) acknowledged customers as part of the product cycle and a valued member of idea generation.  My Starbucks Idea is actively soliciting and implementing ideas directly from their customers.  Imagine that! Loyal customers giving free advice geared specifically towards your product and company and giving them even better reasons to spend money with you.

What if R&D could poll customers and find out what works, what doesn’t, and maybe even find an entirely new and unique market for a product?  Fiskars & Brains on Fire comes to mind (you really need to go read the case study).  Can you imagine a company that has been making a product since 1649 and has *no idea* who uses it or for what purpose?!  There isn’t a scrapbooker alive that doesn’t own a pair of orange-handled Fiskars scissors.  Crafters are fiercely brand loyal, in this case to a product and company that didn’t even know they existed.  By taking the deep dive into the culture of the customer, not only did they gain an almost limitless idea pool for new products, but built a loyal fan base second to none in their fiercely competitive industry.  All by listening and acting on what they heard.

What if Marketing focused on developing amazing content to share with customers instead of canned broadcast messages?  What if they stopped doing what the rest of their industry does and actually did something creative and interesting?  Frenzied Waters is a perfect example of a ground-breaking concept (like most things that come out of Campfire).

How about Human Resources working with employees to find what they need, how they work and learn best, and act more like mentors and less like police?  Saying there is ‘open communication’ between departments is one thing, but when people speak up and never see results, the conversation stops.

Why talk when nothing changes?  This is why it’s important to listen first.  Your customers (or potential customers) will let you know the direction they need you to go in.  And, yes, you need to listen – and adapt.  Running head-first into social media platforms without having any clue what already exists, what people want, and how to best position yourself as a helpful resource in your field are paramount to any endeavor.

So what do you gain by listening?  The most obvious benefit is learning what your customers are talking about, what they need, what they hate, how they live, and how they need *you* to help *them* solve problems. Fiskars listened and gained product insight and an army of crafters.  Discovery Channel provided a new form of personalized, interactive entertainment with Frenzied Waters.  Where conversations used to take place between co-workers around a water cooler, or drinking coffee around a kitchen table – today’s chit-chat also takes place ONLINE.  Drug companies do not create medicine to alleviate (or cure) illness that doesn’t exist – and friends don’t recommend a product they haven’t tried and had success with.  Restaurants don’t put food on menus people won’t eat – and people don’t bring friends to dine at restaurants they haven’t been to before and loved.  Businesses exist to provide a product or service required by the consumer.  No consumer need, no product, no trust, no business.

Secondly, keeping tabs on competitors isn’t such a bad idea.  The danger here is that you get caught up in every move they make and may get drawn into mimicking their efforts online.  If it worked for them it must work for you, right?  Problem here is you don’t know what their goals are, what goes on behind the scenes, failures they have had in the past.  Sometimes it is hard to be different, stand out in a positive light, or provide a truly unique product or experience.  Regardless if you reach that goal or not – you have to try.  If you copy your competition, then you are really no different than they are, and that just made the decision for the customer more neutral.  “Them or Us” – makes no difference.  You need to make a difference.

Keeping your ear to the ground for the ‘next big thing’ gives you a competitive edge and a brain-trust of consumers that are already telling you what your next product or service should be.  If fifty people a day, every day, called your company asking for the same set of products – would you provide it?  Social media channels work the same way, only you need to “pick up the phone,” BE QUIET, and listen to the conversation.  Take notes.  Implement innovation.  Be proactive.

Moving forward requires you to be on solid foundation to start with.  If you are offering shoddy, broken, or inferior products or services no amount of good will or social outreach will save you.  There is a fear that by listening to what customers are saying about you online you open yourself up to negative feedback.  Guess what? Customers (and employees) are saying it regardless if you want to hear it or not.  Trust us, it’s better to hear it, take your lumps, fix it, and move forward.  If you don’t listen to existing and former customers, you will never know what it will take to move you from good to great in their eyes.  You know the saying – it’s easier (and less expensive) to keep a customer than gain a new one.  Listen to the customers you have and make them a true part of your product cycle, it’s one of the only ways to figure out how to gain new ones.

The answer is simple – BE SOCIAL. Now of course if you get that part, you won’t need my company’s help or to even finish this article series. For the rest of us that realize we are learning every day no matter how successful or experienced we are – read on…

It’s 2010 and while it may be old hat for some, most companies had technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn on their radar at least from last year (other companies realized the revolution started in 1984).  Wait it out, be safe, see what others in their industry are doing (and if it works…)  Without realizing what goes on behind the scenes and viewing only the tweets and status updates, many are tempted to jump right in.  Show progress, DO SOMETHING.  Great from a personal perspective, but it doesn’t fare as well professionally.

After working in this field for well over a decade, we are finding patterns in the resistance, adoption, and implementation to social media.  Understandably, not all companies are set up to be ultra-progressive and on the bleeding edge of technology.  The thing is, the curve is starting to see the crest, and holding out any longer puts you on the dark side of the slope.  Even a 70 year-old brand can adapt.  Hell, a 360 year old company can adapt.  If they can – YOU can.

There is no more ‘wait and see’ in this economy.  Results are proven, so long as you are not expecting social media to be a direct line to your company’s bottom line.  If you treat social media as a telephone, and not a sales database, you will see results.

Becoming engaged in social media doesn’t mean a mad rush to smash on the ‘publish’ button and produce content.  A good part of the ‘need’ to get on social media platforms is a result of several factors, in a very predictable course.  With each step, there are traps to avoid and strategies to accomplish goals.  The dangerous part?  The process that leads to success and the (multiple) ones that lead to failure look very similar to the untrained eye.  Trying to tackle social media endeavors using the same tried and true tactics and initiative you’ve used in the past will FAIL.  In the past being active looked like productivity.  Activity = Progress.  Not so anymore.  Sales people thought that the way to make more sales was to call more people.  The game has changed, and fact is, you need to learn the new rules (or make your own) – but it is NOT the same as it’s always been.

Over the next few days the Purple Stripe team will be publishing the following articles related to the different steps involved in developing a social strategy.

• Publish SOMETHING!
• More Friends Please
• Show Me The Money

A few additional topics may surface as well.  We welcome your comments and thoughts, and hope that over the next week we can help you find some soft spots in your social media plans and set the course straight!

(Be sure to subscribe to get the articles as soon as they are published!)

Short answer – NO.  Not everyone needs to be concerned with having a professional business presence in social media networks.  How do you know if you can get a note to skip gym class?  Here’s a quick and easy checklist to determine if you should take social media seriously:

• Do you value what your customers are saying about you?
• Do you need more customers?
• Is customer service important to your company?
• Are you looking for ways to stay ahead of your competition?
• Do you sell goods or services?
• Are you actively expanding your customer base?
• Would you like to gain additional business from existing customers?
• Are customer referrals important to your business?
• Is becoming the first place people look when purchasing the goods and services you sell important to you?
• Do you need to build a brand outside of your existing customer base?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then a social media plan could be beneficial for your bottom line.  I’ve met plenty of companies that have answered ‘no’ to all of the questions.  While they may not admit to answering ‘no’, their actions prove otherwise.  Incorporating a social media strategy into your business plan is not difficult or time consuming, but it does require expertise and planning.

Do you know where to start?  Start by listening!  Two places to start – your Google and Twitter.

• Google Web Search
• Google Blog Search
• Twitter Search

You don’t need accounts to perform searches.  Start by searching on your company name, industry,  and relevant phrases and terms (as well as competitors) to find out what conversations are already going on.  Surprised at what you found – or didn’t find?  Social media content is essentially “Google food” and together with a well-crafted plan, can get you actively involved with potential customers.

So what’s holding YOU back?

Lynette will be attending both the networking mixer and keynote talk by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey hosted at The College of New Jersey in Ewing.

Twitter creator Jack Dorsey will speak with the College about the popular social networking site on Nov. 4 in Kendall Hall, in an event hosted by the School of Business.

Jack Dorsey’s talk, titled “Twitter: Its Implications for Business and Beyond,” will encompass his experience in initiating and growing the Web site, ranked by Alexa.com as the 12th most popular site in the United States. The 5:00 P.M. event is free and open to the public.

This should be a very interesting talk, as Twitter was not created to be a business networking platform or even start out with a business plan or revenue stream.  What it has turned into is nothing short of game-changing – with uses ranging from keeping the Red Cross in touch with disaster victims and hotels such as the Roger Smith reaching out to patrons to amazing fundraising and awareness movements like #BlameDrewsCancer.  Jack’s take on the state of Twitter now will be very insightful.

We hope to see you and be sure to Tweet us while you’re there!