The Socializers | SocialBro

Social Media Monitoring 2014 techniques and outlook

admin January 20, 2014 No Comments

Customers who buy into a social media monitoring solution in 2014 want a page of insights backed by a “living” appendix. The “living” appendix is your technical solution where the customer can study the evidence for your insights. This evidence, in today’s real-time world, is a simple interface in the form of a mobile app that delivers abundant examples supporting the insights on your one-page.

Once the customer of social media monitoring feels confident in this insight-evidence system, he/she will ask you for ways to grow a business based upon the insights. One of the best ways to build a business based on insights from social media is a robust CRM (Customer Relationship Management data set). A robust CRM means that you have taken every person talking about a topic online and discovered their real name, current address, current mobile/landline, current email, current social links and examples of their interest (tweets, posts, comments).

When you have this depth of information about a market, and its occupants, then you have everything you need to develop engaging content. To develop engaging content means that you have listened to the conversation, you have studied and analyzed its participants and you have stepped into the conversation with something to say that contributes to the cutting edge of the conversation at hand. When you post into a comment thread, it is always wise to read the entire thread. When you reply to a tweet, it is wise to have studied who you are responding to so that your reply develops rapport and demonstrates a “seeing” of that particular person. When you develop a blog post on an industry, it is smart to research that industry. This is how great content is created and sustained.

A powerful tool for listening to and analyzing online conversations is Brandwatch. Run by Giles Palmer, the solution has myriad ways to segment conversation data, and the company culture at Brandwatch combines technical know-how, maturity and a certain understated confidence that makes every conversation with staff an “a-ha” moment for those just getting into social media monitoring. Start with Brandwatch when you are on the listening journey.

Once you’ve spent time listening, you will have the large (but fun) project of assembling a CRM related to a topic. While Brandwatch is very useful in discovering usernames related to a conversation, you will need a few other tools to “append” further details. I recommend SocialBro as an excellent tool for downloading extensive spreadsheets from Twitter of those in conversation on a topic. You will be able to combine spreadsheets from Brandwatch and SocialBro to create a near comprehensive starting point of every username discussing a topic. (SocialBro is also an excellent resource for timing your communication with a particular person or group).

Note: If you want to add to the thought-leader aspect of your spreadsheets quickly, I suggest a solution like PeerReach, an excellent and growing resource developed by Zlatan Menkovic and crew. You can go even further with PeerReach by studying the Twitter lists created by these thought-leaders. In many industries, especially outside the USA, it is vital to also study leading forums where literally 10s of thousands gather to discuss and interact around a niche industry. In addition, there are private groups in LinkedIn and at membership only sites with actual lists of industry leaders in a niche or region. If you want to add the latest news about an individual leader or organization, I recommend Recorded Future.

Next you will need to append contact data to these usernames. The contact data is often discoverable via personal URLs such as a LinkedIn or personal website. You can use services like Whois search, Spokeo, Intelius, 192.com, Leadership Directories, and many other regional people-finders to append current contact data. I also highly recommend an Executive or Recruiter level account at LinkedIn for appending contact data. If you want to go deeper, there are a host of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) solutions that are constantly evolving to bring deeper info on individuals and organizations: “OSINT tools” feed from Twitter.

The ideal spreadsheet of a community surrounding a topic includes: First Name, Last Name, Username(s), Current Address, Country, Current mobile, Current landline, Current Email(s), Current social links, Several columns of sample posts that demonstrate interest in a topic (where an individual has posted about a topic), Influence score (such as Kred, Klout or PeerIndex). With such a spreadsheet, you can begin to contact thought leaders directly and engage in a learning process about the online discussion around a topic/service/interest.

As you grow in relationship with thought-leaders, you will find that your own posts, content and actions become more precise and effective…mainly because you will be “on the cutting edge” of the conversation in an industry. You will find that being on this edge gives you an edge and develops a maturity of outlook within you. You will find that others’ respect in you about this topic will grow as you listen, listen, listen to a core group of topic thought-leaders. Your contributions will be informed by these thought-leaders and “passionates” in a niche.

Once your network grows in a given niche, you will begin to see where opportunities exist, where something is lacking, where you can contribute to the need in that community. And, because you posses THE comprehensive CRM (or rolodex) for that niche, you will know exactly who to contact to get things done. The satisfaction in having ALL the information at your fingertips related to your chosen niche is immense! This is one of the great results or outcomes of best-practice social media monitoring: a deep understanding of, and connection to, a global niche community for the purpose of getting something meaningful accomplished.

Looking forward in the social media monitoring industry, we have the need for a solution that combines the listening, analysis and append processes into one dashboard. No-one has produced a satisfactory combo of these yet but the time is coming soon when the comprehensive solution will be finalized. The three “underdog” contenders I like most in terms of the “comprehensive solution” include SpotRight, Truelens and Reunify.

Additionally, there will certainly be a further evolution of the privacy debate in 2014. In an increasingly transparent eco-system, JWT Intelligence predicts a growing “Techno-Paranoia” and a flourishing “Privacy Marketplace” amongst consumers. In addition, JWT predicts the adoption of “Privacy by Design” at major global brands. Read more on these possibilities here. Social media monitoring companies should pro-actively prepare arguments for how listening improves the human condition, creating an opportunity for authentic relationship between brand and individual. An argument for a more open, authentic human community may be found in the principles of Council Circle. There is also, of course, a business model for social media monitoring companies to develop the “Privacy by Design” and “Privacy Marketplace” technologies and programs suggested in the JWT report.

Applying smart marketing tactics to B2B prospect lists

admin December 3, 2013 No Comments

CONTEXT & PROBLEM:
Recently, I sold a list of 500 prospects to a mid-sized trading company based in Europe. The executives at the trading company were puzzled by the individuals I had selected from our internal data set of roughly 65,000 GCC-based business people. Expecting lower income-level individuals, the executives at first reacted with dismay, as though possibility and opportunity would be limited.

My email in response to the executives was simple:

“Yes, in my experience, forming relationships with such individuals is extremely lucrative. I am happy to show you what I mean. Typically, the traders you refer to are temporary quick revenue at a small level, whereas relationship marketing and content marketing aimed at peers results in much higher, long term revenue. Again, I am happy to send you very specific, step-by-step methods for doing this type of marketing.”

CONCEPT RELATED TO THE PROBLEM:
The concept of B2B relationship marketing to peers within one’s own industry remains foreign to numerous executives. The notion of collaboration in B2B settings, even with one’s previous top competitors is very difficult to unpack in more conventional settings. But today, this is where the real value and wealth of networks resides. The Network Archetype is critical to understand here.

HISTORY OF THE NETWORK ARCHETYPE:
Although networking seems like a modern action linked to career growth in the media age, its roots go back to the ancient world. Networkers expand influence by forging alliances and making connections among vastly different groups of people, and can be traced back to the intrigues of the Middle Ages, Greece, Rome, and ancient China. Networking would also have been an integral part of any military alliance as well as all social and clan confederations in prehistory. In its positive aspect, this archetype helps one develop social flexibility and empathy. This flexibility and empathy enables the archetype to find commonality with others who might not at first seem to be potential friends or allies.

SOLUTION FOR THE EXECUTIVES:
The executives referred to above asked me to send the proposed strategies and tactics, along with email/phone scripts and actual examples of how I had effectively run B2B marketing campaigns. Below are the exact steps I sent to the executives:

METHODOLOGY – STEP 1 – THE PRIMARY PROSPECT:
1. We discovered his (the Primary Prospect’s) social links through our social business intelligence tools.
2. We discovered his contact info by exploring the WHOIS database (using his registered URLs).
3. We listened to him and researched the companies he helped start.
4. We studied his resume at LinkedIn.
5. We studied his personal life at Facebook.
6. We studied his specific interests on Twitter.
7. We condensed our findings into a singular goal – a strategy weaving his goals and our goals
into a collaboration.
8. We wrote a personalized, targeted email that can be sent to the prospect.

METHODOLOGY – STEP 2 – THE PRIMARY PROSPECT’S NETWORK:
1. We downloaded every one of his followers using Simply Measured Pro or SocialBro Pro level account.
2. We sorted these followers in Excel by “Listed”, by “Klout Score” or “Kred Score“, and by “Time Zone”.
3. We Filtered these followers’ bios with specific keywords to narrow the scope.
4. We discovered more of these followers’ social links via Klout and FlipTop.
5. We discovered common keywords amongst these followers and researched other influencers surrounding
those keywords within Brandwatch. In this way, we built series of segmented leads lists based upon interest.
6. We then spent significant time listening to the current and ongoing conversations PLUS we studied the conversations in the past. We also made intelligent guesses about conversations from the Future via Recorded Future.
7. We created tweets to “test” the different lists via non-branded Twitter accounts, to see what types of content gains momentum and “purchase”.
8. We created every form of content at the Content Grid 2 to “test” the different lists via numerous communication channels, to see what types of content gains momentum and “purchase”.

SPECIFIC CAMPAIGN IDEAS BASED UPON THIS METHODOLOGY (crafted for the CURRENCY TRADING industry):

1. LINKEDIN COMPANY PAGE – MAKE IT A COMMUNITY (PRO CONNECTIONS): We would like to build out THE COMPANY LinkedIn company page. The idea is to target your updates, services and products on LinkedIn to specific market segments (decide on this from looking at the included spreadsheet of “Types”). We want to craft a message and a presence specific to agreed-upon audiences (“Types). If someone comes to your Company Page from the financial, legal, medical or marketing industry, we can customize the message to speak directly to him or her. We would need to set up a specific type of LinkedIn account to do this. Not only that, but we can create “click-through” banners at your LinkedIn page to entice the chosen target markets over to your website, sales page, commerce site or other social media sites. The goals is to make the COMPANY LinkedIn company page THE most interesting page about forex in LinkedIn. Bulk it out. Follow prospects in LinkedIn. Post regularly in LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a growing and HOT network. Be in the industry groups in LinkedIn and in the conversations in those groups. Start new groups around specific topics and invite prospects with large networks into those groups.

2. BECOME THE WIKIPEDIA OF FOREX & TRADING (EDUCATIONAL APPROACH): Let’s make you guys THE Wikipedia of the forex and trading Industry. When people feel a website is a true “go-to source” for information and answers, they’ll keep coming back—again and again and again. Think: BabyPips, TradingFloor, DailyFX. Become a true teacher (Wikipedia) within the forex industry. The golden rule of marketing is this: They ask, you answer. In other words, if a consumer has ever asked a question about forex, you should be answering it on the COMPANY website. And considering most industries have literally thousands of potential consumer questions, content should always be growing, evolving and added to. MahiFX is doing this very well on Quora, for example.

3. IN-THE-FLESH (PROSPECTING IN PERSON): Identify people in THE COMPANY to become “champions” around specific topics. Then assign them the task to spend 12 months simply meeting up with industry influencers in person. Some of the strongest online connections and relationships have developed because such “champions” took the time to connect in person. Either by organizing a “meetup” or “Tweetup” with a group, going to a conference (such as the recent http://ifxexpo.com/ ) where they knew the people they wanted to meet would be or even just connecting one-on-one through Skype. We highly recommend taking some of these online connections offline to make a deeper connection. As an example, the SVP of a leading social media monitoring solution personally emailed me when he was in NYC and asked to meet up, simply to shake hands and show what his company was doing. I started using his solution regularly after that. Be the first forex entity to actually meet its customers and prospects in person regularly and make the social marketing department a leader in this “in-the-flesh” personal revolution.

4. LIKE & FOLLOW YOUR CUSTOMERS AND PROSPECTS (SOCIAL MARKETING APPROACH): Instead of asking our consumers to like COMPANY on Facebook or to follow us on Twitter/LinkedIn, why don’t we start liking/following them? Most brands use Facebook as an extension of their traditional and mass-marketing initiatives. But what about following/liking and getting to know your customers/prospects personally. The social media department is the “human” side of the business and not just a reactive PR silo. Go out and forge relationship by following/liking/subscribing to your prospects. Then start answering their questions and participating in their discussions.

5. SPEND ON HOUR A DAY SIMPLY LISTENING (ON-GOING BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE WORK): Spend one hour every day simply listening to your customers/prospects AND these prospects will empower your business with knowledge about what your markets really want. Use BrandWatch to do this — it is THE best social media-monitoring tool. Also look into SocialBro, an up and coming Twitter service for discovering specific communities and individuals. This is crucial for your business to grow and achieve high customer satisfaction. Customers like businesses that listen and respond to them. Sun Chips, for example, returned to their old packaging after customers complained widely on the Internet that the new biodegradable packaging was too noisy. Be THE forex entity that is tapped into the latest trends in conversation AND THEN lead those conversations.

Social Business Intelligence Advance #4

admin September 18, 2013 No Comments

The business intelligence solution that marketers want is the following: a cloud-based service that is comprehensively analyzing in real-time networks of regular customers AND matching these customers (and their friends) to upcoming deals specific to past purchases. For instance, if Amazon were to fully integrate its data with Facebook’s data, a profound level of matching would become possible. Senior leadership within major FMCG and retail entities should be actively cultivating technical vendors and in-house technicians to achieve this type of customer intelligence solution.

The Sweet Spot in Social Business Intelligence for Weaving Marcoms and Sales: The Machine & Marketing/Sales Process

admin July 3, 2013 No Comments

CONTEXT:
A fierce debate still rages between marketing and sales in most organizations as the enterprise seeks to understand how to use social data for both silos. With exceptional software and smart cross-silo relations, marketing and sales can collaborate on nurturing and closing ideal prospects. This blog post has outlined the type of software needed to do this AND a sample sales approach for teams to consider.

WHAT THIS POST COVERS
This post covers three specific topics:

1. The exact description of an ideal social business intelligence “machine” that would serve both marcoms and sales.

2. The functionality this social business intelligence machine would possess.

3. A set of potent actions that combine a bit of marketing and bit of sales, thus demonstrating how one can progress from market research (using social data) to a closed sales deal.

THE IDEAL SOCIAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE MACHINE: The sweet spot for social business software is between the marcoms & sales silos, between pools of potential fans & fresh prospect data. The social business software of tomorrow will bring understanding between marcoms and sales, will create an easy funnel for “smart” fans/followers to become customers. Deriving prospects from social data has never been easier with the combination of solutions now avail to the marcoms & sales silos. Now these solutions need to be “merged” into one single machine. I describe this machine below.

THE EXACT FUNCTIONS OF THE IDEAL SOCIAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE MACHINE (as desired by Marketing and Sales silos):
In the coming powerful social business intelligence software (the “ideal machine”), we will see the following features:

1. Dials to find the exact people fitting prospect profiles. Imagine being able to pull every profile from every major social network AND THEN have dials to hone results down to exactly the customer profiles your business seeks.

2. Get suggestions from the software (from “the machine”) of other “pools of prospects” and prospect types BASED UPON your initial search.

3. Then, imagine pushing a “button” and getting current phone, email, physical address, add’l social links appended on-the-fly to the social profiles discovered thus far in the process above.

4. Now, mix in Topics of Influence & Volume of activity by each profile relative to the themes in your marketing & sales campaigns.

A SET OF POTENT ACTIONS FOR MARKETING & SALES AFTER EXTRACTING IDEAL PROFILES FROM THE SBI MACHINE:

1. STUDY THE LAST FEW DAYS OF TWEETS/SOCIAL MESSAGING: See what the individual is talking about. What is important to him/her? Jot down one or two specific points about these tweets/social posts/forum comments that you can compliment him/her on.

2. STUDY THE WEBSITE OF THE INDIVIDUAL: See how the individual presents himself/herself to the world. Find one to two items on the website to compliment the person about. This will make the call warmer and open an opportunity to collaborate.

3. SEND AN EMAIL TO THE PROSPECT FIRST: A powerful way to invite the person is to send a personal email wherein you introduce yourself briefly, lace in the compliments you discovered through Twitter, other social properties, blog comments, and his/her website, and then invite the individual into a collaboration.

See below sample of an email to send:

Dear Tom,

I am a Client Partner at BrandX, an FMCG group based in Los Angeles, California. Your materials online and, in particular, your steady stream of tweets chronicling your typical business process have impressed me. Would you have some time during the coming week to discuss what you are up to, what we are doing, and a possible collaboration with us?

Kind regards,

Client Partner
BrandX

4. SCHEDULE A PHONE CALL: When you get a reply to your email, schedule a call with the person. The call will involve listening to the Prospect, letting him/her know what we appreciate about him/her, what we saw in his/her materials and then working on an idea to collaborate on. It is a good plan to come to the call with some options that are personalized.

SUMMARY:
A fierce debate still rages between marketing and sales in most organizations as the enterprise seeks to understand how to use social data for both silos. With exceptional software and smart cross-silo relations, marketing and sales can collaborate on nurturing and closing ideal prospects. This blog post has outlined the type of software needed to do this AND a sample sales approach for teams to consider.