Responses to Marketing News Radio questions

Really enjoyed the great questions from Wednesday’s  AMA Marketing News Radio program, “Beyond Buzz: Succeeding in a Conversational Marketing 2.0 World,” hosted by the gracious and smart David Kinard. Here are responses to questions that we didn’t have time to get to during the show. Thanks for tuning in!

Can social networking marketing strategies work for B2B industries?  If so, how do we find the relevant networks for our industry (in my case, it happens to be architectural and commercial development)?

Absolutely. Set up several Google Alerts with key words about your industry to begin to see places. Think about using key words that will bring up social networks, like “Industrial architect forums” or” industrial architect blogs.” To see how large the community or blog might be go to Compete, plug in the URL and it will tell give you the # of unique site visitors. Another tip: when using Google use search term “top ten architecture blogs.” I find those top-ten lists a good way to find good sites.

Is there somewhere I can go to learn the practical how-to’s for setting up Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and other similar web programs?  Every talk I hear seems to say how important they are, but none take the time to walk through exactly how to set them up or use them.

Here’s a great list of “how to” blog posts on those topics. Very detailed.   Another source can be found here. (Great little instructional videos.)

I work for a contemporary art gallery and our Internet service currently rests on the city’s server. Therefore, we are blocked from such sites as Facebook and MySpace. We’re not even allowed to post pictures on flikr or Kodak gallery, etc. The city sees them as non-work related sites, understandably. Any suggestions on how we should “pitch” to the city how necessary it is for us to have access to these social communication tools?

Here’s a BBC report on why “Bosses should embrace Facebook” based on a new study.  To make your case find additional data and examples to show how governments – city, state and local – are using social media to be more effective, responsive and citizen-friendly. Build they case for the trend; create a Google Alert “Government use of social media.” (Here’s one example)  Gather the best facts and examples and enlist other organizations like yours who feel the same way. Maybe even start a local social movement, using a blog or Facebook, to raise visibility of the issue. Get some ideas on how to force change from this post, Social media lessons from union organizers.

What tools do you use to track conversation re: your product on the web?

There’s a whole host of tools you can use to track conversations, from the free Google Alerts to Radian6 (low-to-mid) to TruCast from Visible Technologies (mid-to-high). The right choice depends on your business needs. If you’re not doing anything yet, at a minimum set up Google Alerts about your company, your category, industry trends in your field.

And to track conversations on Twitter try services such as Twilert, which will email you once a day with mentions of the keywords you care about, or set up a dashboard on Tweetdeck or Tweetgrid which you can configure and bookmark in your browser to track keywords about your company, products and competitors.

Once we’ve established a presence on a social network, and have the current social networkers buzzing, how do we drive potential customers to that network?

Promote the value (and URL) of the social network to your customers in all the ways you communicate with them.  Emails, brochures, sales presentations, “on hold” telephone message, on employees’ email signatures, etc. Also make it easy for people to tell others about the network by including a lot of social sharing tools in the network to- email, delicious tags, Digg, Twitter, Stumpleupon, Facebook.

Also keep an eye out for particularly engaged members who you can enlist and empower to act as ambassadors for the network.

You referred to the Air Force formula to use as a guideline. Where would I locate that?

You can find it here.

What the pitfalls or key things to look our for when using Facebook or LinkedIn for recruiting and positioning/branding?

The pitfall is using it as a one-way message board promoting your company.  The way to get value is to provide value. You have to give to get.

Use these networks to provide information that’s helpful and interesting to your audience. Or use it o ask questions, like “we’re looking for a sales executive with xx years experience in the xyz industry; compensation: $120-150k.  Know anyone?”    Guy Kawasaki offers this good advice, “Ten Ways to Use Linked In for Business.” Note, however, that Facebook and LinkedIn do have their limitations. For many businesses, there’s not a whole lot of value for them with Facebook.

I suspect that there will be discussion about social networking sites and their effectiveness as a relationship building/marketing tool.

Most definitely. You can find much more information about this topic in this free e-book, Marketing in 2009.

Any other questions? If so, please add them here and I’ll get back to you. Again, thanks for listening.