Lee Stacey - Filed under 'twitter'

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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March 4, 2010

Let's Make The 10 Billionth Tweet Really Silly #silly10b

Twitter is fast approaching 10 Billion tweets, as you will see if you look at this handy counter:
http://popacular.com/gigatweet/

Wouldn't it be great if the 10 Billionth tweet was something really silly and pointless? Wouldn't you just LOVE to be the person responsible for the most famous tweet of the year? I'm sorely tempted to fire up a botnet and fire out a million "om nom nom" tweets in one shot around that time... (joking obviously)

At the time of this post, there is about 15 hours left until the magical tweet will appear so you've got 15 hours to think of something really silly to tweet. It would be totally awesome if you attach the hashtag #silly10b too. Give it a go, it's like a Twitter fame lottery! There can be only one winner and it could be you!

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Filed under // 10 billion 10b fame fortune om nom nom silly silly10b tweets twitter

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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 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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January 30, 2010

3 Steps To Generate Traffic To Your Blog By Doing Very Little

1) Create a blog post about generating traffic by doing very little.

2) Share the link on Twitter.

3) Sit back and watch.

I know, it's genius.

I'll get my coat...

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Filed under // blog seo traffic twitter web

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December 22, 2009

The Art Of Brevity

Keep it short.

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Filed under // brevity short twitter

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December 16, 2009

I Got This Link Sent In A Twitter Direct Message by @CaptureItNow aka @connectwithjeff and...

At first I was like:

WOO FREE MONEY!

Then clicked to watch the video and I was like:

SPAMMER SCUM!

The little message by the REALLY ORIGINAL "no spam" sign says:

We Hate SPAM! We won't share your email address with anyone!

Opt-out at ANYTIME!

So, erm, Mr. Long, what are we opting into when we submit our email address? You have failed to tell us this.

Why do our details unlock your magic video?

Seriously, Jeff, do you think your stack-o-cash pictures, exclamation! marks, CAPITALISATION and bolding fool me?

Idiot.

Douchebag:

Fool:

Is it any surprise that his Twitter profiles are just full of affiliate links?

http://twitter.com/connectwithjeff

http://twitter.com/CaptureItNow

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Filed under // capture page clickbank die dm douchebag email fuckwit harvesting instantcapturepage.com jeff long mlm sorry mum spam spammer twitter wanker

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December 12, 2009

I Guess There's No Escaping Christmas... Even On Twitter!

I'd like to report Christmas for abuse!

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Filed under // christmas lovelychristmas spam twitter xmas

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December 3, 2009

Lee's Lessons Learned - #5 Twitter Text Messages

(download)

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Filed under // audio fail lee stacey lee's lessons learned message mobile phone podcast sms text twitter

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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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