Social CRM is Really About Strategy Not Tools #SCRM
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Today’s social media podcast (direct download here) is focused on social customer relationship management. Social SCRM (#SCRM on Twitter) is really where sales and social media form a nexus point with customer service, leadership and community. This of course is assuming we use the Social CRM for its intended purpose. Too many organizations fall in love with the tools but they should really be showing their customers and prospects that love. Here’s a great blog post that defines social crm well: “What is Social CRM?”
Monitoring conversations is great – but getting involved in the conversation and being a thought leader is where the true opportunity is. Having a Social CRM strategy is vital, we need to help our sales team understand how to socialize online. Today’s podcast talks about some of the pro-active components that should be included in that strategy.
Should you let your sales team publish content using social media?
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Today’s podcast answers the question “Should you let your sales team publish content using social media?” I cover 5 reasons sales professionals should not be publishing content on social media and 13 reasons they should be. Here’s a brief summary of what is covered:
5 reasons why you should not let your sales team publish content using social media:
- You have hired idiots – even if you trained them they would just be motivated idiots.
- You have so much profitable business that you couldn’t handle any more
- Your product really sucks
- Your company and culture really suck
- You haven’t or will not equip them with
– The rules of engagement and a social media policy
– Training in the tools of engagement
– Accountability in place – once engaged it’s game on – have a framework support and accountability.
10 reasons why you should let your sales team publish content using social media:
- “It’s not marketing it’s talking to customers” – Scott Stratten of UnMarketing
- It adds to value added frequency
- It opens up new channels
- It can save time
- Load balance your branding
- Social CRM is the next big thing – are you cruising or are you road kill (Social CRM Podcast)
- Immediate data instead of compiled and stale data
- It makes them almost as smart as your customer
- You can see the activity
- It builds a passive pipeline and makes projections easier “If you’re talking to unqualified prospects it’s not a sales problem, it’s a marketing problem” – Zero Rejection Prospecting (Michael J Durkin and Norbert Orlewicz)
- It builds a fence around the customer
- It creates joy
- It elevates sales people above pitch artist to trusted advisor
Should frontline sales people blog and about what?
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This podcast is in response to the following question (via twitter):From @jaypiddy @shanegibson should front line sales staff blog? If so what should they blog about?
Have a listen to this podcast to hear my thoughts on the subject.
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Blogathon 2009 for Vancouver Food Bank
Linkedin Groups by Richard McLaughlin
A big thank-you to Richard McLaughlin for guest blogging on LinkedIn to help me out with my 24 hour Blogathon I’m doing for charity today. Here’s Richard’s Guest Blog Entry
Linkedin Groups by Richard McLaughlin (@_McLaughlin )
There are many social media groups out there and I have come to the decision that LinkedIn has the best possibility for connecting with people of your niche. There are over 340,000 groups so everyone can be reasonably sure to find at least one group that find your niche. For example, there are over 1000 groups related to social media.
When you when you go to join LinkedIn groups make sure you choose a combination of small niche groups and larger groups. Don’t join a group on firefighting, with the intention of writing about knitting. That may seem like something that goes without saying but there are a lot of people that will join the groups with the most members and post garbage. MLM posts in a technical group. Maybe they are right to try, the numbers are more in their favor. The problem is that many group members ask to have people that make posts like this banned from groups, which can lead you to a site-wide ban.
On the front page of linked in there is a section where you can have questions posted for you to answer. Take advantage of this by answering the questions and remember to include a link back to your site. I have IT questions posted on my LI home page, I answer those there are really related to me. I avoid answering the open questions that do pop up (“what’s better black or white…”) because opinion questions in a forum can be too time consuming.
Once in a group, write a post specifically about the niche that the group covers. I mentioned MLM people posting in inappropriate groups and this example holds true for any group. Do ask questions. If you find a site that has not been listed in the group, then list it. Groups have job openings listed in one section and I have even found a way to get traffic by making useful posts for job hunters based by region.
With over 340,000 groups, the opportunities are close to limitless. By the time you have run through all the existing groups for your niche, you can be pretty sure that someone else will have made another group. And if no one has made a group, then you should consider making one yourself.
To Donate the the Vancouver Food Bank Click here or the image below. Every bit helps!
Blogathon 2009 for Vancouver Food Bank
20 Social Media Tips Under 140 Characters
Daily I post social media tips on Twitter, I thought I would post the most recent 20 for you. Have any to share? Post them in comments below.
20 Social Media Tips Under 140 Characters:
- Spend at least as much time listening as you do broadcasting.
- It’s called “social media” for a reason. Be prepared to interact consistently.
- You can’t win the game focusing on the scoreboard. Focus on the game of engagement and the traffic will come.
- Losing followers is okay, measure the engagement level of who is still here to see how you are doing.
- Have a goal, measure results, measurement provides feedback and improvement.
- The internet has always been about helping people connect to people (@nickusborne)
- Pay it forward. Help, teach. guide and be patient with people new to the scene. [Tweet This Tip]
- Study people who are credible with the type of clients you want to attract. Model their strategy.
- Marketers aren’t always synonymous with community builders, traffic and followers isn’t always equal to credibility.
- If you’re an old school e-mail marketer or pitch artist, there’s some habits you will need to unlearn.
- Before you start your campaign define your market and their pains.
- Everyone and every company gets off message once in a while. Refocus and learn from it.
- Leaders of large “Tribes” need to have thick skin and a tolerance for noise.
- Continually tweak and update your Linkedin profile, your network will be notified.
- Social media is changing so quickly that if you stop too long to smell the roses you’ll be out of touch.
- Try a new platform each month, video blogging, FaceBook, tumblr etc. Curiosity can lead to great discoveries.
- You can’t make a robot network for you at a party, why do you think they can do it for you on the web?
- Some un-follows are strategic. People want to know if you’re really listening.
- You can’t please everyone. But know who you are trying to connect with. Get in sync with your audience.
- http://www.ping.fm updates FaceBook, Brightkite, Twitter, tumblr and Linkedin statuses all at once
3 Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Tips Part 6
This is part part 6 of the 19 Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets inspired by Jay Levinson and adapted by Shane Gibson (me). Here’s today’s 3 Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Tips:
15. Content – “Substance wins over style” Give real value, unique content and do it often with multiple social media weapons. If you want to dominate your marketplace using social media give more, and give more often. Your community and Google’s robots will reward you!
16. Augment – Augment your attack; audit yourself and your strategy constantly. The world of social media is growing by the millions of members every month. You have to stay up on the tools and on the demographics of each medium. NHL Superstar Wayne Gretzky attributes his success on the ice to always knowing where the hockey puck was going to be versus where it was in the moment. He was always ahead of the game. You need to be the same way in the social media space. Ask: “What’s next?”
17. Congruent – Make sure that all of your tools and messages work together. You should be layering each blog entry, twitter update, or FaceBook post like bricks in a building. They all are valuable but contribute to a greater masterpiece, your brand and reputation.
Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets Part 1
Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets Part 2
Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets Part 3
Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets Part 4
Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets Part 5
3 Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets
Last week I posted Guerrilla Social Media Marketing secrets 1,2 and 3. There are 19 Guerrilla Marketing secrets and after chatting with Jay Levinson he gave me the go ahead to share a few more. So here’s secrets 4,5 and 6 based upon my interpretation of Jay’s 19 secrets:
3. Consistent – Don’t change your identity. Brands, relationships, trust, and technology all take time for adoption and acceptance. Be consistent with your message and on-line social media identity.
4. Confident – You must be confident and instill confidence in the customer. Use social media to listen to your customers. Jay says, “Service is anything the customer wants it to be.” Listen! He goes on to say, “Quality is what customers get out of your product. “ This is great information that can help you provide specific, on topic, brilliant solutions to your target market’s pains.
5. Patient – Be patient. Be patient with yourself, it will take you time to master the Guerilla Marketing “Weapons of Social Media.” Be patient as you build a community online, build roots and a foundation that will be un-shakable. Be patient with your target market, they will rush in to use and engage in social media, but they will do it in their time-frame.
Social Media Tips
These are a selection of social media tips that I have posted on Twitter over the past couple weeks. I thought I would put them all in one place for easy reference. Please add your tips and thoughts in the comments section.
20 Social Media Tips:
- Focus on a specific theme in your social media for extended periods of time
- Your blog is your home base, all social media should feed your home base
- Social media is 90 % contribution and connection 10 % marketing and sales
- Social media belongs to the people, they get to make the rules not the marketer
- Have a social media policy for your company. Help your people be effective and on message
- Promote other people’s dreams. It builds community, loyalty and brand for you
- “Marketing is a process not an event”- @jaylevinson
- Blog, tweet and talk about solutions to people’s pains and challenges
- Social media tools like twitter are listening tools more than they are broadcasting tools.
- Nano-cast to many small niches instead of broadcasting to everyone.
- Learn to break up large blog entries into many smaller entries. It’s more user friendly
- Take time each month to update your major social media profiles, use key words that your prospects would search for
- Use social search like http://search.twitter.com and http://blogsearch.google.com to listen to your customers
- Each social network has it’s own etiquette FaceBook type behavior doesn’t work on LinkedIn
- Answer people’s comments on your blog, or @ replies in Twitter. Social media leadership is about bi-directional communication.
- Think twice, click once.
- Take it off-line, book in person meetings or hold events for your online social media contacts
- Use an assortment of tools, it geometrically multiplies efforts
- Always be asking where are we going? What is the next Twitter or FaceBook going to be?
- Use a mixture of content on your blogs, top 10 lists, photos, video, audio, guest bloggers, and polls…
Register for updates on Sociable! Shane Gibson and Stephen Jagger’s new book to be released in June 2009.
Social Media Seminars with Shane Gibson.
Related Posts:
- Twitter tips for Sales People
- Social Media Phobia Why Executives Aren’t On board
- Succeed in Tough Times with Social Media
Hey Clueless Networker Maybe They’re Just Not Into You Anyway!
Today’s podcast is possibly about why your prospects aren’t calling you back. I’ve created a bit of a monster, several events here in Vancouver and abroad where I have been telling people that attending events like The Vancouver Sales Performance Meetup, various Vancouver Board of Trade Functions, Tweetups and industry functions is how to grow business. This is not true. It only works if you’re doing it the right way.
Some once said part of success is just showing up. To add to this it’s about HOW YOU SHOW UP. Have a listen (Be warned this one may offend those who don’t enjoy sarcasm):
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