I have been a fan of Slideshare since uploading my first presentation three years ago. SlideShare has evolved into an online community for presentations and a complete business resource, offering the following:
Research: search for any topic, sort by views, downloads, and frequency. Mine for data, sources and new, fresh ideas.
Interaction: connect with users sharing similar interests, those who embed and comment on your presentations
Lead generation: attract visitors and generate leads with their new turnkey ad platform
Social sharing: add character and context to your blog posts, tweets and social presence
I am considering their ad platform for three of our b2b clients. Certain data & use case info took me too long to find. I became frustrated and expressed it in a tweet:
Within minutes they responded:
And they continued to respond:
I asked for a number where I could discuss the issue on the phone. They provided one.
When I called, their CEO, Rashmi Sinha, answered. We spoke for 10 minutes. She provided the information I was looking for.
This a real example of the ROI of Social media. Their customer service efforts resulted in earning our business.
As soon as we start placing advertising on their site, I’ll be back with a review. Until then, I encourage you to try it!
A blog is a considerable investment. It’s an investment in time. It’s an investment in financial resources to plan, design, host and market. And it’s an investment in a business direction to listen, respond and contribute to your industry and your customers.
What makes this investment worthwhile is that it provides an authentic, human voice for your business, and it enables your company to demonstrate, through actions, that you are paying attention. This voice and its corresponding actions create real results, some of which are listed below.
Why blog for business
A low cost customer communication tool for small business. This works particularly well in defined niches. Even if your business operates in a highly competitive landscape, identify the point of view from which you can speak uniquely and credibly.
A tool to drive organic search. Keyword rich blog headlines, content producing incoming links, and the continuous supply of fresh content are factors contributing to effective search engine visibility.
A thought leader strategy. A company blog provides a platform for an executive to interact with their industry and establish themselves as credible in the field.
A place to continue the conversation started on a social network. Facebook, Twitter, and online communications reveal different perspectives of a business within social media. A blog provides the space to share a more complete story and to expand on a point of view.
A social media credibility builder. Have you interacted with a business on Twitter, clicked on their URL and arrived at their homepage? It creates a disconnect between an intimate conversation and a business agenda. The blog provides an appropriate greeting place for fans you’ve met in social networks in order to continue the conversation.
A response platform. Where will your business respond if a major mistake was made or you want to publicly thank an advocate or respond to a critic? Your blog provides an ideal platform for this.
A technique to build an identity which informs other marketing. Companies, like people, can clarify who they are through their interactions. The clarity benefits other marketing initiatives.
How to blog for business
There are many expert practitioners including Debbie Weil, Amanda Watlingtonand others with deeply informed perspectives. I have found the following steps successful in my work:
Outcomes – “Measuring “new” media isn’t as different as measuring “old” media. The trick is to figure out what your goal is first.” Therefore, ask, “If the blog is successful, what will it achieve in a year?” Will it attract new customers? Provide a human face for the company? Secure speaking engagements for executives? Reveal actionable insights about customers? Getting agreement on the desired outcome is critically important. The outcome drives the strategy…I don’t believe you have to pick just one outcome; however, I do believe that if there are multiple outcomes they should be prioritized.
Audience – Is your blog written for current customers? Prospective customers? The industry in general? Knowing your audience is helpful to refining the message.
Key performance indicators – Common KPIs include blog visits, time on blog, number of subscriptions, number of comments per post, incoming links and mentions in social media. It’s important that the KPIs you measure are not only social media KPIs, but also business KPIs as well. For example, measure how the blog contributes to marketing, sales, HR, customer service and internal culture.
The big idea – What is the idea for the blog? I always test it with someone who has no knowledge of marketing or social media to make sure it is clear. For example, the Stonyfield Farm blog celebrates, “Cow”munities. Its big idea is to let fans look inside their company.
Content – Create categories prior to developing an editorial calendar. If you are blogging for a company that makes matchbooks, consider starting by creating a list of topics. For example, the history of matchbooks; the future of matchbooks; the most valuable matchbooks; things you didn’t know about matchbooks. Each topic has the potential to become a series. Once the topics are developed, build your editorial calendar. Consider this helpful presentation to help spark content and style ideas.
Design – Knowing what you want to communicate first helps to define the design. There are several critical questions to answer: Which blogging platform will you use? Will you use a pre-existing template or create a custom one? If you are looking for a theme, consider these 100 amazing free themes for WordPress.
Marketing – In what ways will you consistently market the whole blog and each individual post? What is the context for the blog? Who are its peers? Who will you feature in your blog roll? When others are asked what your blog is about, ideally, how would you want them to respond?
Integration – What is your plan to integrate the blog into your company’s culture? In what ways will you integrate the blog with the official website? Notice how Whole Foods integrates its blog under the Talk to Us tab. BTW, Whole Foods should consider changing it from “talk to us” to “talk with us.” To what extent will you maintain the look and feel of the website versus establishing a unique identity for the blog?
Management – Who is responsible for managing the blog content and design. What is the content and comment moderation policy? To what extent are legal, HR and other stakeholders involved? The earlier in the planning phase you can uncover constraints and considerations the better.
Let us go then, you and I, to the Twitter accounts of the top brands. Before we do, I’m going to make a prediction: the majority of their tweets will be @ replies. That’s interesting for several reasons. First, it signifies that they are using Twitter to engage with their customer base by responding to their questions, suggestions and comments. Second, it indicates a neglect of what their followers find compelling.
It’s uninteresting to follow a company I care about and only read their replies to their customers. I’m going to generalize and say that we follow companies because we like their products and services, we want discounts, special access to promotions, to get closer to a world view we share as well as a response to our questions.
If the majority of a company’s responses are @ replies, it signifies a company is listening. However, listening alone is not compelling, especially if a company’s responses are not directed at you.
Check it out for yourself. Go to these Twitter accounts and see:
There is another side to this discussion. If we think of the brand as a person and Twitter its voice, the account consisting of a majority of @ replies is approachable. Customers feel that can ask a question and receive a response, evidenced by the account’s activity. It communicates something real about the brand.
I am in favor of a balanced approachability strategy that signifies you are listening, while also providing engaging content. We track the ratio of @ replies in our tweet stream for clients as a metric that helps us navigate this.
I’m teaching a course at Emerson College called “Social Media and Marketing.” Unofficially, I’ve titled it “Why Social Media Matters.” I’ve asked 20 industry experts to share with me the most challenging questions they are asked on a regular basis about social media. Their answers shaped our curriculum. Each week the class explores one of the question. Five companies are involved with the class: Cisco, Doink, 8Minute Dating, Zappos and Nokia. Students are working on their real business challenges involving social media.
In the first class, we discussed the meaning of social media, based on its application and various definitions. There is considerable debate on what social media is.
Prior to the class, I asked several prominent bloggers for their definition, many of whom referred me to the Wikipedia definition.
While that’s a good place to start, we shared many other insightful resources:
1. Video: Social Media Revolution
Statistics are persuasive; I wish the sources were cited more fully in this video.
2. Presentation: IAB social media metrics definitions
The Interactive Advertising Bureau offers many concentrated key performance indicators helpful in planning and measuring a social media campaign.
I just completed an integrated social media plan for a client. The plan will engage and activate their customers on social networks.
Customers that are engaged with the brand are more likely to buy products and services.
And they are more likely to refer.
This helps to establish the business case for social media.
A non-social media example underscoring this point is the way universities interact with their alumni. Check out your latest alumni magazine.
In mine I found 7 examples you can use right now to build a customer community:
1. User generated content. Alumni wrote 75% of the content in the magazine. In what ways can you incorporate customer content into your blog?
2. Icons. Images of new buildings, professors and innovations fill the pages of the magazine making me proud to associate with the community. What images are you sharing with customers in your coorespondence with them: clip art or photos that evoke a sense of identification with your company?
3. Context. On every page the alumni magazine reminds us of the history of the university, which is greater than any individual member. Reading through the magazine I feel a sense of being apart of something greater than me. What values does your company promote, which are bigger than it? Are you sharing those values with your customers?
4. Ceremony. Birth, death, marriage and accomplishments are ceremonies celebrated within the pages of the alumni magazine. What are the ceremonies you celebrate with your customers? (i.e., 1-800-Flowers is celebrating their customer’s birthdays on Facebook).
5. Featured members. The alumni magazine spotlights new alumni each month by honoring them with an interview. How do you honor your customers?
6. Togetherness. The alumni magazine invites fellow alumni to travel together. It encourages those who do to send pictures and features them in the magazine. This creates a sense of belonging that is real. How are you creating a sense of “togetherness” with your customers?
7. The Ask. A purpose of the alumni magazine is to raise money for the university. It does this in direct and indirect ways. Directly, it asks for contribution only once. Indirectly, the more you read the magazine, the more you identify with the community increasing the likeihood of donation. How are you asking customers for their business? And what value are you delivering before they do?
This blog analyzes where social media culture and business converge. Zach Braiker is the CEO of Refine & Focus a social media agency and an adjunct professor of social media at Emerson College.
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