TeamThink’s Blog

Twitter Viewed with Dismay as a Marketing Tool

If the business owners and decision makers I spoke to in mid-sized firms last week are indicative of a broader sample of this same target audience, social media, let aloneTwitter, is not even on their radar. 

Last week I delivered presentations about social media to peer advisory boards run by Rick Holbrook at Renaissance Executive Forums . These peer advisory boards are composed of business owners and senior executives who operate companies (most of which had 50+ employees). All the owners served B2B markets. View the presentation.

Less than 25% of the board members were using some form of social media for marketing, recruiting or any other manner. Most members had limited knowledge of Twitter and had a high degree of skepticism about its value.

Twitter is still in is infancy and I’m of the mind that if you had to pick and choose between various social media alternatives due to limited resources, you’d be better served demonstrating thought leadership and subject matter expertise using blogs, Youtube, podcasts, wikis/discussion boards, etc. And I think this is the major issue. If you’re a 50 person company with one person in marketing and resources stretched to the max, do you make an effort to use Twitter? If you’re a 200+ person company with a deeper marketing bench maybe you can experiment? You need to decide if it makes sense.

Whether or not you have the resources, you may want to be aware of how Twitter can add value and not dismiss it as a useless tool. Four good reasons are outlined below:

1. Boost your search engine rankings! Twitter status pages are starting to be indexed by search engines and increased traffic to your site achieved via Twitter increases the relevance of your site which search engines love (see end of post for links to articles on the topic).
2. Promotions: Some companies such as Dell are using Twitter to offer exclusive promotions to Twitter followers (see ZDNet’s Blog).
3. Reputation Management/Customer Service: Some companies are appointing staff or “ambassadors” to scour the web and seek out conversations about their company to contact Twitterers who are speaking negatively about their company. At a minimum they use these conversations to assess what is being said about their company and using the intelligence gathered to improve their business. Savvy companies reach out to Twitterers who are expressing dismay about their products and services and offer to solve problems or using Twitter as a customer service communications channel (See AT&T’s use of Twitter during a power outage).
4. Recruiting: This may be more appropriate in technology industries where workers have a higher propensity to use social media tools like Twitter but strategies to use Twitter to recruit are now part of recruiting.

SEO & Twitter:

• Squidoo
• Site Point
• Blog Herald

The net of all this – stay on top of Twitter and every time you’re planning or rethinking your marketing efforts, ensure social media is part of the discussion and Twitter can be a part of the conversation.

Add comment June 20th, 2009

True Story: How I Saved Weeks Doing Research Using LinkedIn

In a previous post, I referred to a common question I’m asked about LinkedIn: Does it really work (i.e., will it help me generate sales)? Is there an ROI?

There is no simple equation to say “yes” or “no”. I liken the question to: Does advertising really work. The answer is “yes it can” although sometimes it’s hard to determine a precise correlation between an ad and a sale,  or its ROI. This may sound like blasphemy to many marketers. Of course we strive to understand ROI. But creating brand awareness via “less accountable advertising” can be a part of your marketing mix.

So back to LinkedIn. One notion I’ve suggested is LinkedIn’s value equation includes time saved to conduct research. Let me illustrate this point.

I’m looking to crack into the financial services sector with a social media offering. I identified a specific company I felt was a strong prospect to pursue – let’s call them Company X. Using LinkedIn I conducted a search on Company X and located a former employee with 2 degrees of separation.

1. So a phone call went into my colleague who knows this person.
2. She introduced me via email to the former employee – let’s call him Joe.
3. We had an email exchange and set up a phone call.
4. I spoke to Joe and not only got the inside scoop on Company X’s use of social media and its marketing department dynamics – but I took the opportunity to ask Joe how social media is being utilized in the financial services sector.
5. I learned lots. While Joe was at Company X, he was part of a team that conducted an in-depth competitive review on how competitors were using social media. I learned about successful social media initiatives at various banks, attitudes of marketers in the sector toward social media, top objections to selling Company X on social media services, top blogs in sector for consumer banking, and much more.
6. I’m now more prepared to sell to this prospective client.

LinkedIn was the sole reason I located Joe. This chat has saved me hours of research and has provided vital intelligence to help in the sales process. If you’re a VP of sales, how much more productive can your team be if they can identify valuable contacts using LinkedIn? Think about how you can compress the sales cycle.

So my question to LinkedIn pundits and curiosity seekers: What’s the ROI on this experience? Massive!

2 comments June 2nd, 2009