Lee Stacey - Filed under 'social media'

March 11, 2010

B2B & Niche Business Social Media - How Does That Work?

Some businesses are feeling a bit left out of all this social media stuff because their customers don't appear to be out there sparking conversations about them or if they are, those conversations are so few and far between that it doesn't really seem worth investing time and money in reaching out to them. In some cases this may in fact be true but I'm yet to find those cases.

Time for an abstract example!

Investment bankers probably don't talk to their non investment banking friends about investment banking all the time. In fact, the subject is probably of little interest or relevance to the investment banker's Saturday night pub crew so the conversations tend to be about other subjects. If you specialise in selling products to investment bankers, going out and interrupting their pub time is probably not the best way to sell to them. Alright, you might spark up a relationship and have a chat about football but if you try to get all your business that way it's going to take a lot of time, effort and money.

So what's going to work better than the above situation? A party for investment bankers! While this may sound dreadfully boring to anyone not in the investment banking world, those that are will meet up and talk shop with a bit of off topic thrown in for good measure too.

Well, in reality it's not that simple. Get these guys & girls together and they probably won't talk to each other without a little help. You may need to (and this is where the analogy gets worse) have a few topical party games and get some people out there socialising like mad in order to start conversations.

It's all going well, everyone's happy, they're loving you and your products, they're talking about you and your products... They're probably going to buy more of your products too now! YAY!

Seeing as this is working so well, why not make it a regular event? Tell them they can bring their investment banking friends and colleagues too. More people, relevant conversation, bums on seats, pounds in the bank. JOB DONE!

How on earth does that relate to social media?

I'm hoping the penny dropped at least half way through that long winded analogy so that you didn't have to read it all. In case the penny hasn't dropped, I'm talking about building online communities. In the old days we used to build web forums and chat rooms that people would come to and talk about their niche interests. Clever businesses would set these tools up around their brand or product and engage with these communities by giving them "free" information and a place to chat. It was quite a successful model then and guess what... It is STILL a successful model, it's just that we've become so obsessed with all this other tweeting and bleeting, we've forgotten about the old fashioned web community model.

These days it's not just for geeks

The good news is that the tools for building these communities are much better and easier to use now that literally anyone can do it. Not only that but because everyone's already doing all the the other stuff: Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc. it's much easier for them to share information and tell other people about these communities.

Platforms like Drupal (and there are many other alternatives) allow you to build a one stop shop where your community can chat, share info and even to some degree promote themselves and gain kudos within said community through activities like blogging and reviewing products or services... YOUR products and services!

What about Twitter and all that? Shouldn't we be using that too?

Of course... Do that stuff too! You still need to do the outreach and listen for conversations in the wild but invite those guys in. Make them a cup of tea. Make them feel welcome. Get the chocolate biccies out too and they'll keep coming back! You'll soon notice that the conversations they are now having in the wild are about you and your wonderful hospitality!

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Filed under // community management drupal facebook linkedin online communities outreach social media twitter web

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February 18, 2010

The Social Media Disconnect

Businesses STILL don't seem to get it, do they? More often than not, the corporate world leave the management of their social media up to the marketing department or simply outsource to to an external marketing agency. Nothing wrong with this but if a company has a social media presence, they really need to be social. It's not about broadcast, broadcast, broadcast. That's just spamming. There are also many cases where an external agent is used to manage a community for a brand. Again, nothing wrong with that either but when that brand is a product that requires genuine end user support, it would be nice if the "social" arm of these companies were actually able to do this.

If I have a problem with a product and require support, is it too much to expect to be able to talk to the person/team representing them on Twitter about it? Apparently so.

The problem is that as a company grows it tends to divide its self up into departments. This department deals with this and that department deals with that. If you're not careful this can create disparate silos within a business. Where this is evident on the social web is marketing and customer support. Why are companies marketing on the social web but not supporting their customers on the social web? I'm going to use the word "social" as many times as possible here because I'm trying to drop a rather unsubtle hint.

I really began to notice this problem when I was having problems with my O2 phone. I don't have a land line and my mobile phone wasn't working so I couldn't phone their helpline. I went to their support page on the web, went through their FAQ/troubleshooter thing and still didn't find an answer so I used their online support form... Which didn't work. After getting a little pissy about it someone reminded me that O2 had a twitter stream so I contacted them. Their initial responses were to contact the support number or use the web support. Not very useful. In the end (after several days of to and fro because it takes them a whole day to respond when there's actually a problem) they said they had contacted support and I would get an email from them explaining what the problem was and how I could go about sorting it. That email never came. I did eventually sort the problem out but I did it on my own, completely in the dark and with no help from O2's customer support.

The problem with O2 is that (as it says on their twitter profile) their twitter stream is maintained by their press team. They just don't have the information or tools to hand to deal with customer support problems. This begs the question: Why are they trying to support customers if they aren't equipped to do so?

I'm not blaming O2's press team because I believe they did the best they could within their mandate. I'm not certain but I expect their press team is an external entity. Most likely a PR/marketing agency.

The problem is a corporate one, not any one department's fault. The problem IS the departmental structure. On the social web, the very least you need to be able to do is support those to whom you are preaching and selling to. If your brand is something that requires support, you need to be doing this on the social web as well as selling.

How you go about this depends on the product you're trying to support but there are so many ways and with a decent bit of community management you can get the community to do a lot of the hard work for you at little to no cost at all.

Imagine going into a shop and buying a TV. It goes wrong so you take it back to the shop. If that shop told you they couldn't help you because they only sell the stuff, how happy would you be? This is exactly the same scenario. It's unacceptable, don't you think?

Good customer support is one of the best marketing tools available. If you want people talking about your brand positively online, give them an experience worth talking about. Where social media is concerned, it's all about their communication and what they are talking about. It's not about your press releases.

Anyway, you get the point. I'm done with this now. I need a cup of tea.

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Filed under // agency business community management corporate customer support disconnect marketing mobile o2 operator outsourcing phone public relations silo social media social web telco telefonica twitter

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February 9, 2010

I Hate The New Facebook Interface!

Actually, I don't hate it at all. That's just what everyone else is saying.

Believe it or not, the Facebook interface designers base their decisions mostly on two factors. Those being: What the users want and what will help drive more revenue. Unfortunately, every now and then something you use is going to get dropped. It's probably been dropped because not many people use that feature or because it doesn't fit in with something they have planned for future development. They do know who clicks what and how often they are clicking it...

Imagine if they did a U-turn every time the user base said "we don't like it, change it back". Well, most of you probably wouldn't be using it now because it would still be a closed network for students. It wouldn't have any apps or games. It wouldn't integrate with other social networks.

Change is good. Change is necessary for evolution and improvement.

You will get used to it.

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Filed under // facebook social media social networks

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February 8, 2010

SEO Is Dead!

Oooh, that's a controversial title, isn't it? I suppose I'd better substantiate this wild claim...

What is SEO?

From Wikipedia: "Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web sitefrom search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion. Typically, the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence."

Surely search is still important?

It is. Saying "SEO is dead" is a bit of an overstatement really. It's still important as people still use search engines but it's not as important as it used to be because the realtime web and and viral propagation are taking over. This means that when you do search for something on Google (or whatever) the realtime search results will come up before those with high page ranks. Also, which is better: A search engine listing or a recommendation from a friend or trusted source?

So what is more important than SEO?

Anyone that regularly reads my my posts will probably already know that my answer for this question is social media! I've said it before and I'll say it again, this does not mean banging your press releases out over Twitter and leaving it at that. It's much more than that. You've got to engage and above all else, you have to listen! Only with real engagement will you be able to build a community of evangelists. You need to build a relationship with your target demographic. Engagement leads to trust, trust leads to evangelism, evangelism leads to virality, virality leads to WIN.

So should we forget about SEO?

Definitely not. You still need it because there are always those special deep searches for finding out the stuff that not a lot of people know. Also there are always niche applications where you may not easily build a community (although I'm yet to find one). There is also the added bonus that someone might find you via Google and enter your community via the back door.

The back door

So SEO isn't dead, it's just that since building the extension, what was your front door has now become your back door. Social media is the new front door!

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Filed under // marketing search seo social media techforce twitter viral virality web

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December 21, 2009

Why I Made A Facebook "Fan Page" - And Why You Should Too

People see the words "fan page" and instantly think you have delusions of grandeur when you create one; unless you're a superstar, that is. In my case, there are some very simple reasons behind doing so.

Privacy

The new Facebook privacy settings are a total pain in the arse but surprisingly they are actually better than they ever were, just a damn sight more complicated. The good thing is that you can lock things down and only let people see what you want them to see. You can organise people into lists and exclude them from certain content and it all works pretty well (I think). Rather than exclude my extended network from things and have to add people to lists every time I get a new friend request, I've decided to only have my "inner circle" as Facebook friends. My extended network don't need or even want to know what I'm saying to my Mum.

Content

I create a lot of content that my extended network are interested in (because that's more than likely how they came to be in my extended network in the first place) but my friends and family are probably not. In fact, they probably get pretty peeved with me flooding them out all the time. I can publish content to a Facebook fan page and only those wo want to see it will see it.

Connecting

A fan page allows you to grow a larger extended network. Anyone can join in and get social. It's a good way to increase your reach and influence without compromising your personal life.

Sharing

Pages allow you to share with more people and allow more people to share with you. Whether that be photos, links, or whatever content. Sharing is good!

The House Vs. The Pub

Your Facebook profile is like an online version of your house. Your friends and family may come and go as they please but you don't just want to let anyone in. They may pee on the carpet and that's never a good thing! Your Facebook page is more like your local pub. You can go and chat to anyone you like and meet new people if you wish to do so. Anyone can come in, anyone can leave. Anyone can choose to interact with anyone else or not. Entirely up to them.

The Spammy Bit :p

Now I've given you the whys and wherefores, please allow me to spam you with a link to my Facebook fan page:

http://bit.ly/LStacey_FB

You don't have to join if you don't want to but I do like to be social and if you do too, it probably wouldn't hurt. :)

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Filed under // facebook fan house lee stacey lstacey page pages privacy pub social media

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November 30, 2009

How To Get Retweeted

One of the best ways to improve your reach these days is by way of a retweet but with so much social media noise and so little meaningful signal, how do you make that happen?

Make It Interesting

Nobody is going to retweet a post about you doing the ironing because that's just not interesting. Not that it's a bad thing to tweet about the mundane things in life, it isn't because the mundane things in life help your followers relate to you on a personal level but it's just not going to wow anyone. However, if you can turn that tweet into something funny or interesting (with a creative mind anything is possible) people might feel like passing it on. If one person passes it on there's a good chance others will.

People Like Funny

Funny is good. If you find something funny, people like you will probably find it funny too. If you're not just a follow whore it's likely that a good percentage of your followers are into the kind of things you're into. People also like seeing other people make fools of themselves so if you do something really silly and tell other people about it, it's a win! Tweet something that makes you look like a complete idiot, if it's crazy enough it will fly.

Newness Is Goodness

Breaking news is always good. If you can give people compelling or interesting news before anyone else does, your value to them will be enormous. Again, if it interests you it will interest people like you so throw that stuff out there! This isn't always easy because there's a chance that those people like yourselves will get that news pretty quick anyway so you've really got to have a good nose for these things and the ability to think and react quickly.

Retweet A Retweet

Something that has already been retweeted is probably good to retweet. If it's been retweeted already that means someone has already found it interesting. Also, if a tweet has "RT" in it twice, the eye of the reader is instantly drawn because it MUST be interesting. Those two letters "RT" are like a knife that cuts through the social media noise.

Make It Easy

If your tweet is 140 characters in length it will need to be edited down in order to be retweeted. This means that the retweet will either look a complete mess made up of horrid nuspk abbreviations or it just won't be retweeted because the retweetist can't be bothered to edit before sending. As a general rule of thumb I always make sure I leave 20 characters free on every tweet I think is worthy of a retweet.

Please RT

If something is genuinely for the greater good then don't be afraid to put "(Please RT)" at the end of your tweet. Of course, if it's just self promotion or you're selling something it won't work and may even annoy people... Especially if you do it all the time! When used wisely and carefully this is a useful tool.

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Filed under // funny interesting noise reach retweet retweeting retweetist signal social media tweet twitter

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November 9, 2009

Lee Needs A Job

Now that we're firmly planted in November I can officially announce that after two good years working as an IT Manager for a prestigious property development/investment firm based in London's Mayfair district I too have become victim to the dreaded economic downturn and find myself seeking employment. Usual story, the company needed to downscale considerably and that meant downscaling IT also; so here I am, looking for work!

I'm unemployed but not unhappy

I could get rather upset and wallow in misery but that's not how I roll. I see this as an opportunity to find a nice new challenge to sink my teeth into and I'm rather keen on finding a role in digital marketing and/or community management as these are things I've actually been doing for a number of years but more as a hobby or a bolt on to previous employment roles.

Social media maven (tongue in cheek :p)

I think it's fair to say that I have a rather good understanding of social media and it's associated tools and techniques. Amongst other things, I have over 12,000 followers on Twitter, a very well read blog and I'm not a spammer so that's got to mean something, right?

Are you looking for a job too?

This blog post actually has a dual purpose. Obviously my main objective here is to promote myself and find some work; preferably something I WANT to do. The other purpose is that I firmly believe that in the current climate anyone in my position (and there are quite a few) needs to stand head and shoulders above the rest so now is a good time for polishing that personal brand! If like me you're looking for work, get out there and shout about it! Get blogging, get tweeting and get engaging (does that work in that context?). Of course if you do nothing but shout about needing a job you won't get much of a following so you'll need to do a bit of work. You've probably got some time on your hands now so start creating content that interests you and I can guarantee that it will interest others too. If you're writing about things you enjoy, it's actually pretty easy. Try it. Out of that your personal brand will be born, you will gain a following and opportunities to network. Don't go follower crazy either. There are various techniques for gaining followers quickly and I advise against all of them. The best thing you can do by far is be yourself and engage with other people sharing your interests.

Hire me... Please...

At the moment I'm collaborating with a professional copy writer on my CV (resume) using Google Wave, which in it's self is pretty exciting but I can send you a draft version if you're desperate to employ me right now. (I'm being positive here, OK?)

If you know of any positions currently vacant that might fit someone like me, please contact me by one of the means listed below:

Email: me@leeneedsajob.com

Twitter: @LStacey

MSN: msn@leestacey.com

Skype: pilchardmusic

GWave: lee.a.stacey@googlewave.com

Thanks for reading and...

Giz a job! :D

Lee Stacey - Musician / Geek / Thinker

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Filed under // brand branding community digital google it lee stacey leeneedsajob lstacey management manager marketing personal redundancy social media twitter unumployment wave web

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March 24, 2009

wefollow.com - My Opinion

My AudioBoo

wefollow.com

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Filed under // audioboo directory followers social media techforce twitter wefollow wefollow.com

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January 14, 2009

Actually You're Probably All Wrong

You should use twitter this way if you plan to do this...

As the title suggests, you are all probably wrong. Twitter is far too new and not far enough into its evolutionary process for us to know how we should be using it as a business tool. There are lots of these so called "social media consultants" in the twitterverse and blogosphere telling us how we should be using Twitter to get results and improve our brand identity... Or Whatever... What a pile of utter balls.

Twitter is on the verge of going mainstream. When that happens (and it will happen really fast) the entire dynamic of the application and its global community will change. I don't know how it will change and I don't believe you do either. Please correct me if you have a crystal ball.

If you follow my twitter stream (thanks by the way) you will have noticed me harping on about follower counts lately and the fact that the number of followers is unimportant if they don't genuinely have an interest in what you're tweeting about. This is all part and parcel of the same thing. I'm seeing a lot of relatively new tweeters out there with ridiculous UFF ratios (updates to Followers to Following) indicating the use of what I call the followback method. A method popular with spammers where you follow lots and lots of people and hope some will follow you back. A lot of people are using auto follows so they are guaranteed easy meat. You can rack up thousands in days using this tactic... Not for much longer though. I think people are getting wise to this now, probably because they are getting spammed into oblivion. Eventually it will just be spammers following other spammers. Well, we can hope I guess.

It wouldn't be right to leave you mulling this over without telling you how I use Twitter and what I get out of it. I'm not suggesting that this is how you should use it. I am not a "social media consultant" nor do I profess to be.

How do I go about getting followers?

I don't go out of my way to. I don't employ any tactics. My followers are mostly people that have found me through my content or conversation. Sure, there are a few rogues in there but they don't hang around long. I don't have a massive follower count but I know most of them are valuable because they are following me for what I consider to be the right reason. My follower count is growing slowly, organically and with high value. I like it that way.

Who do I follow?

I follow various types of people who use twitter in many different ways. I generally follow people that interest me. That's all really. I tend not to follow anyone that doesn't engage unless their stream is really interesting. I like conversation. For me it is a huge part of what Twitter is. More often than not I'll follow you if we get a good chat going too. I like making friends!

Do I follow back those who follow me?

I quite often do actually but I always try to look at the profile of a new follower. If they look spammy I don't follow back. The first thing I generally look for is @ replies. If there aren't any on their profile I don't consider them very social and generally won't bother. I also look at the UFF ratio. If they are using the followback technique, forget it!

What annoys me most on Twitter?

I hate automated DM's when you follow someone. To me it just says "Thanks for joining my spam list, I can't be bothered to talk to you in person. You're just a number to me". If it spams me with a link it REALLY gets my back up. Saying that, I always give a second chance and usually DM back to see if there's really a human there at all and if there is will they engage and win me back? Sometimes they come back to me and save themselves. Those that don't get binned.

So there you go. That's pretty much Twitter and I in a nutshell. I have nothing to sell so no agressive techniques here. However, if I were selling something I have a feeling that could work for me too because I would have people following me that want to buy my stuff... Something like that anyway...

Sorry about the composition and terrible construction of this post. I have no concentration tonight whatsoever and as it is not a professional blog it doesn't matter that much so I won't lose any sleep over it. If by some kind of miracle you got this far, thank you for reading it! I hope it is in some way useful to you.

Comments as always are welcome and encouraged!

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Filed under // consultant engage followers growth human lee stacey ratio social media techforce tweet twitter UFF

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January 11, 2009

Twitter Observation 2

A lot of people on Twitter like to rack up followers without a care who they are or what they are interested in. Emphasis on numbers and collecting meaningless followers is not what social media is all about. It is about engegement and conversation.

Sure it is good to know people are following you but isn't it better to know they are following you because they are interested in what you have to say?

The best advice for getting a meaningful follower count is just to do what you do. If you do that, the "right" people will follow you and in most cases will be worth a follow back.

That is the most sense I can come up with today on this one. Feel free to expand with comments below.

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Filed under // 2 consultant social media techforce twitter twitter observation

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