I have a “virtual” company. Well, it’s a real company, but I don’t have a building and employees and all that traditional stuff. I work with a posse of freelancers who might be spread out all over the country. So I have the best of both worlds. Great company, great people, but no worries about payroll and HR issues.

Everything works great about this model except for one thing. You can’t brainstorm by yourself.

This was the problem I was facing recently when I needed to come up with creative ideas to help a client company mark its 30th anniversary. I had some ideas, but I’ve been around long enough to know they weren’t the BEST ideas. For that, I needed to put some minds together. But how? I was on a deadline and needed to write a proposal quickly.

It dawned on me that this is what the social web is all about — networking, sharing, helping, creating. So with literally no planning, I wrote up an invitation on my blog to join a web meeting at 4 p.m. that very day and sent out one tweet asking if anyone would be interested in spending 30 minutes with me to think out loud. I was fortunate that seven people joined me, including one from Brazil and one from Spain. Some I didn’t know at all, some like Gregg Morris and Carla Bobka had become my friends over months of interaction on Twitter.

I used Citrix for the online meeting interface and conference call.  I wrote out ideas on my shared computer screen so all participants could build on what was being said.  On the notification on my blog I had given dial-in instructions as well as a little background on the problem.

In 30 minutes, I had two pages of great ideas.  I massaged the ideas into a proposal, presented it to company management and <ta da> they loved it!  But there were side benefits, too:

• I explained to my client how I came up with the ideas, which further strengthened their interest and commitment to the social web.
• The people who connected on the call enjoyed the exercise and have reached out to stay connected between themselves. I think that’s cool.
• I had an idea that worked, will be repeated and it was something I could share with you.

What I could have done better:

• Planned it ahead of time and allowed more time for people to learn about it.
• 30 minutes was probably too short. Another 15 minutes would have made a big difference.
• Two participants had technical problems which limited their ability to participate. A few additional people bopped in for a few seconds and left. I’m guessing they had tech problems too.

All in all, it was a  simple, cost-effective, successful people-technology mash-up.  Are you doing these kinds of things to support your business?

A brand new study from the University of Massachusetts Center for Marketing Research  compares adoption of social media over three years (2007-2009) by the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing private U.S. companies.  

In 2007, the Center’s first study of this group was released and revealed that the Inc. 500 was outpacing the Fortune 500 companies in their use of social media. For example, 8 percent of the Fortune 500 companies were blogging compared to 19 percent of the Inc. 500. This difference accelerated in 2008 with 16 percent of the Fortune 500 blogging vs. 39 percent of the Inc. 500. And in 2009, it was 45 percent versus 22 percent fo the Big Boys.  

This research shows that social media has penetrated this part of the business world with tremendous speed: 

Not just for customers and employees – As the graph above depicts, many companies are using the social platforms to connect to other stakeholders such as vendors and business partners. This was a new question for 2009 and the first time I have seen this kind of data. Interesting! 

Social media marketing has been “successful” – When asked if the use of social media has been successful for their business, the overwhelming response is that it has. Twitter users report an 82% success rate while every other tool studied enjoys at least an 87% success level. Measuring success was investigated and most respondents report using hits, comments, leads or sales as primary indicators. 

Policy use still low –  61 percent of the respondents did NOT have a corporate social media policy 

Importance and adoption — When queried on the importance of social media, 44% of respondents felt that social media is “very important” to their business and marketing strategy, up from 26 percent.  And a walloping 91 percent of the Inc. 500 is using at least one social media tool in 2009 (up from 77 percent in 2008). 

Monitoring gains –  68 percent of the companies formally monitor company and brand information on the social web.  That number is up from 60% in 2008 and 50% just two years ago. 

Further immersion –  The companies clearly intend to continue immersing themselves in these tools.  44 percent of those without corporate blogs intend to have one. 27 percent of respondents who do not currently have a business presence on Twitter plan to move into that space. 

Social networking leads –  The technology that continues to be the most familiar to the Inc. 500 is social networking with 75 percent of respondents in 2009 claiming to be “very familiar with it” (compared to 57 percent in 2008). Another noteworthy statistic around familiarity is Twitter’s amazing “share of mind” with 62 percent of executives reported being familiar with the new microblogging and social networking platform. 

Adoption curves for social media technologies vary –  Interestingly, while social networking and blogging have enjoyed growth in actual adoption, the use of message boards, online video, wikis and podcasting has leveled off or even declined. The addition of Twitter for the first time in the latest study shows that an amazing 52 percent of the Inc. 500 companies are already using this tool for business. 

What stands out for you in this research? Any big surprises? Or is it ALL a surprise? : ) 

Many thanks to the authors of this study, Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes,  and Eric Mattson.

In my recent post on the time-sucking dragon known as the social web, Jody Pirello offered some comments on how she keeps up with the latest trends. I think this is a critical career skill these days and I encouraged her to flesh it out into a post. It is our great fortune that she did — a MUST READ!  Here’s Jody:

I evolved into eMarketing differently than many of you probably did.  I started my career as a programmer.   As a developer I had to learn how to stay current, keep abreast of upcoming changes, and learn how to separate the here-to-stay from the gone-tomorrow. Those skills help me today, too.

Here are a few of the ways I do it (or at least, try to do it)

1. Use downtime wisely - I’m amazed at all the little bits of time I have available – waiting for a conference call to start, waiting on late team members, or even standing in line at the post office.  My iPhone gets a workout during these times!
2. Learn, always -  I work professional development into my every day life.  I watch video presentations while eating lunch, listen to podcasts during my  commute, and intentionally blur the line between professional and personal.  I’ll frequently have a conversation over drinks at the bar on a Friday night that translates into something I use Monday on the job.
3. Cultivate a learning ecosystem - No matter how committed I am I just can’t do it all.  I rely on a set of friends and colleagues to broaden my knowledge.  I have a friend who knows all things mobile, a colleague who’s a whiz at CPG , and another friend who has a thing for twitter apps.  And hopefully I contribute to the mix with my web development and project management knowledge.
4. Be selective - I can’t keep up with everything so I choose a set of problems, verticals and technologies to focus on.  This goes hand-in-hand with my learning ecosystem.
5. Work portably - I’d be nowhere without tools and services that allow me to work effectively on my terms.  Two of my favorites are delicious and Google docs.  They’re hardly earth-shattering but they have a big impact on my productivity.  If I come across an article that I’m interested in but don’t have the time to read it right now, I add it to delicious.  Same thing goes if I’m at home and want to use a site while at work.  Google docs is great for enabling me to do my work wherever I may be.  I write most of my blog posts in google docs too, and its one-click sharing allows me to get input and feedback without needing to merge comments.
6. Use my Google Foo - Knowing how to use search engines effectively is a must-have skill.  If you want to extend your Google knowledge or even just do a little brush up, take a look at Google’s search tips.   Don’t discount the less popular engines either – occasionally you can discover real gems by broadening to one of the others.
7. Prioritize blog reading - I have “must read” and “daily read” categories in my RSS reader.  I’ve made it a rule to never do the dreaded “mark all read” to these folders.  I may not read them everyday (yep, sometimes I even get behind on the “daily read” folder) but I do make sure I read them all – usually by the end of the weekend.

I’ve outlined what works well for me – my working and learning styles.  The key has been to find tools and processes that I could adapt into my regular life without effort.  If I had to try too hard to make them work they’d be among the first to go when I was busy or tired or just feeling a bit lazy.

What works well for you?

Jody Pirrello is a web technologist specializing in project management methodologies, business analysis, and web analytics. She’s the VP of Technology at NetPlus Marketing in suburban Philadelphia and one half of the SocialCloudNow http://socialcloudnow.com/team.  Follow her on Twitter @jpirrello.

This blog references a tweet I sent out today (Feb. 10, 2010) asking for help on a crowd-sourcing experiment.  Here’s the skinny:

I will open a voice and web meeting today at 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time as an experiment to “crowd-source” a brainstorming session. To attend this meeting, all you have to do is click this link: 

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/710449008 

You can use your computer microphone or call in at  312-878-0206      ( Access code: 710-449-008) 

If you plan to attend, please link in at least five minutes early to assure your computer is on the Citrix meeting app. 

Here is the purpose of this meeting: 

• My client is a company that installs, services and maintains business voice and data systems in the Southeast U.S.
• The 30th anniversary of the company is April 1.
• The founder of the company is still active as CEO
• They do not currently have a high public profile. In fact, brand awareness is a very big problem.
• With a budget of $5,000 or less, what creative PR activities could mark this milestone anniversary?

Hope to see you at 4 … Trying something new — we’ll see what happens! 

 Mark

This is the third and final (for now) personal case study on how the social web delivers unexpected business benefits. This story features LinkedIn, a powerhouse generator of business connections.  

Making connections

I’ve made some of my best business contacts through LinkedIn Group Q&A forums. One example is my relationship with Dr. Ben Hanna, now VP of Dex Interactive. In a casual response to one of my answers in a forum, he mentioned that he was documenting his company’s progress on social media marketing month by month. I thought this was fascinating and asked if I could feature him on {grow}.  This led to a number of articles which remain some of the most popular posts I’ve done.  Ben and I have continued to support each other on various web-related projects.

Human Resources 2.0

Second example of a business benefit: One of my customers was looking to hire a new technician with highly specialized skills. I suggested doing an advanced search on LinkedIn using the zip code (to narrow the location) and keywords indicating the skill set. He followed my advice, identified three viable candidates and he just hired one of them.  I helped my customer with an important personnel issue in one 60-second phone call!

New customers

Another example led to a direct business opportunity.  An account executive from GIS Planning read some of my answers on a LinkedIn Group Forum and became curious enough to click my icon, which took her to my website … which took her to my Twitter account … and my blog.  Of course I had not connected to her directly at this point but that was about to change.

After a couple of months, she called me up out of the blue: “Mr. Schaefer, I’ve been reading your comments on LinkedIn, Twitter and your blog and I’m convinced you are the voice of marketing we need for or company. Can you take on a new account?”

Well, THAT was a nice surprise!

This led to subsequent phone calls with her executive leadership and it resulted in a business partnership with GIS Planning, an amazing company that produces software for economic development institutions.  It pulled me into a whole new industry and allowed me to learn from some wonderful marketing pros.  And, it has helped my bottom line, which is what this is all about, right?

So let’s see how this real-world experience relates to my formula for creating business benefits on the social web: 

Connections + Meaningful content + Authentic helpfulness = Business benefits

• By being active on LinkedIn forums, I was building important new business connections. In the GIS case, I didn’t even realize it.
• The content Ben Hanna provided spurred dialogue and cooperation between us.  Meaningful content in the form of LinkedIn Group answers provided enough value for GIS to take action to learn more about me. Meaningful content comes in many forms!
• When I was participating in the forums, I was genuinely offering help with no intent that I would get anything out of it. Similarly, I enjoy supporting Ben’s projects becuase I always learn something and I truly believe in his vision.

I believe this formula represents the core value of the social web — providing an opportunity to use your life’s blessings to connect to others in a meaningful way. We are living in a historic moment. We are the first generation to have access to free, instantaneous, global communication.  If you use this gift well, the benefits can be astounding.

Don’t you agree?

This is the third installment of the unexpected benefits of the social web. You might enjoy these other articles:

Part 1: How to become a CMO in 10 tweets or less

Part 2: On Twitter, even casual connections can lead to business benefits

This headline is just a bit ridiculous, of course!   But I did want to make a point that social media works in amazing and unanticipated ways.  This week, I’m featuring personal case studies to show how the social web can provide legitimate business benefits, sometimes when you least expect it!

The first example is about how I became the Chief  Marketing Officer of Freesource … without ever meeting my new boss.   

About a year ago I saw notice on a LinkedIn Group that the American Marketing Association was offering a webinar on using the social web to make your business more efficient.  The presenter was a guy named Nathan Egan, a former LinkedIn exec who had just started a company called Freesource.  The price was right — free — so I attended.  Nathan seemed like a bright guy and at the end of the webinar, he invited the participants to follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn, so I did.

Getting on the radar

Through Twitter, I appeared on Nathan’s radar and he began reading my blog.  The topics I wrote about resonated with him, and, like many readers of {grow}, one day he called me to talk through some of his business problems. We continued to support each other and toss ideas around over a period of months.

Nathan assembled a great team and Freesource grew quickly as businesses sought the company’s advice on using the social web to make their businesses more productive and efficient.  As the client base grew, he needed a wide variety of resources to support projects, and, since I can do a wide variety of things, I seemed to fit the bill!  Nathan began sending me paid assignments to fill in the many white spaces of a start-up company.

I loved the work because our views on business and marketing were aligned and I absolutely bought into his vision of how the new media could work for a corporation. As Nathan’s trust in me grew, he provided more important, strategic assignments.

Freesource quickly became one of the largest and most respected social media marketing agencies in the country.  Nathan no longer had time to work on the critical marketing functions of his company and asked me if I could help.  I recently agreed to become CMO on a part-time basis and help him through this exciting growth phase.

The success formula

This is a good time to reflect on that important formula I introduced a few months ago:

Connections + Meaningful content + Authentic helpfulness = Business benefits

How this worked in the real world:

• I was active on LinkedIn and established relevant new business connections.
• By providing meaningful content through Twitter, I appeared on Nathan’s radar screen. Ideas from my blog grabbed his attention.
• We offered authentic helpfulness to each other without regard of any future “pay-back.”  This built trust and a dialogue that led to a mutually-beneficial business partnership.

The more I’ve studied success stories in the social media space, the more I am convinced that this formula really does work.  This week, I’ll share a couple other examples to show how.

How does this fit with your own experiences on the social web?

This is part of a series on the unexpected business benefits of the social web. You might enjoy these other articles:

Part 2: On Twitter, even casual tweets can create business benefits

Part 3: LinkedIn: A goldmine of business opportunity

Wanted to share this brief presentation as a superb example of how effective, simple design can be used to tell a story. In less than three minutes, the primary findings on a research study on the source of individual power are wonderfully illustrated.

Think how effective this communication method is compared to simply reading a blog article on what could have been a very dry subject.   What are your thoughts on this presentation?

There seems to be this new genre of media out there meant to scare the crap out of you.  The techno music starts to pulse and then these animated slides whiz these amazing facts at you like “Did you you know that the average worker now spends 26 hours a day on Facebook?”  <next slide>  “And that rate is growing at a rate of 1,120%”  <next slide>  PER MONTH??”

These ”scare slides” are meant to impress you with social media’s omnipotence and power. Through the pounding music they want you to think that change is coming at you so fast that you might as well just call it a day … unless you buy their consulting services.

I don’t know where they come up with these facts, but here’s one that caught my attention: “For a college freshman, half of what they have learned will be obsolete by their junior year.” 

While that “fact” seems improbable, it did make think about the accelerating rate of change and the impact on indivudals as we try to remain effective leaders.

A hypothesis:  Personal “technological adaptability” is going to be an increasingly important life skill.

Here’s what  I mean.  The rate of technological change is occurring so fast that an ability to quickly assess, process and deploy new apps will be a source of competitive advantage not only for companies, but for individuals.

Let’s say we had two employees, equally educated and experienced. Both are given a task. Employee One begins the task, as assigned by the boss. Employee Two first assesses free tools on the web that can sort, organize and automate that task.  Ultimately that employee will provide a better, faster and cheaper result for the company. And get a promotion!

Even two years ago this would not have been an issue. Both employees would basically have access to the same company-issued and approved technology — Excel, Access, Word, etc.  But now, for almost any work task, somewhere, there’s “an app for that.”  The ability to find and apply these free and useful ideas will become an increasingly critical skill.

So what does this mean for me and you?   How do we keep our edge at this incredible rate of change?   Where do we find the time to do explore and learn new applications?  How do companies enable this skill in employees?

This is a blog post for anybody who has trouble finding the time to blog. In other words, everybody.  I humbly submit a few practical ideas to help you become a time-efficient blogger.  

1)  Leap.I mentioned this in a recent post, but it bears repeating. The number one challenge most bloggers face isn’t time, it’s CONFIDENCE. Can we agree that you will take the leap? You will?  Good, I knew it!  You may proceed to item 2.

2)  Don’t be Chris.  Kids practicing basketball pretend they’re Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. They won’t be, but they can still have fun playing basketball.  When I first started blogging, I tried to be Chris Brogan, who writes at least one post every day. I nearly killed myself. The bionic blogger and has set the bar unbelievably high.  You can’t be Chris, but you can be YOU quite successfully.  That’s good enough.

3) Take a little bite. Take the pressure off yourself by setting a goal of writing just one 400-word essay a week.  Doesn’t that sound MUCH easier?  Bonus points: Long posts lose readers any way.

4) Set sacred blog time. How long will it take you to write that one short essay? Probably an hour?  Give yourself the gift of one quiet, undisturbed, productive hour each week to write.

5) Write lots of headlines.  It takes time to come up with ideas so write them down right when they come to you. Inspirations for blog topics are everywhere. When I see an interesting tweet or news article that could be a post subject, I go into WordPress and quickly write the headline for the essay. That way, when it comes time for my quiet hour, I have a whole list of  essay topics to choose from.   

6) Stop second-guessing.  Go back to your essay a day or so before you intend to publish it.  Proof it. Tighten it up.  And after 15 minutes, stop!  You can waste far too much time re-writing and second-guessing yourself.

7) You don’t have to be profound.  Here’s a recent post from my friend Danny Brown.  He saw something interesting — a video demo of the electronic magazine of the future. He simply pasted the YouTube link into his blog, wrote a brief comment, and voila — c’est le post.   This was a fun, interesting article.   He did good work. How long did it take him to write it?  Probably 10 minutes. 

8) Listen to yourself.  A lot of people tell me that my blog posts reflect questions and concerns they have but have never articulated. Why not?  When you have a thought, idea or rant — write it out at that very moment when it is fresh and you are full of passion. This is the most efficient way to write and it almost always results in a great post.

9) Leave the technical stuff to a technical person. Don’t spend your precious time trying to figure out why your blog widgets are haywire.  Pay an expert to figure it out, even if you like that technical stuff … especially if you like that stuff!

10) Try a video blog. I haven’t worked this area myself yet, but if you’re naturally eloquent, it might be a lot quicker for you than writing out a post. Best practice: Jason Falls.

11) Turn your comment into a post.  You probably contribute comments to other blogs. Why not re-use the time it took to write that comment? Copy your comment and use it as the seed for an original post.  Look at the comment section today. How many of these ideas could become a stand-alone article? 

12) If you run out of ideas, see number 6. Repeat as needed. Seriously though, Google “ideas for blogs.” There are lots of lists of thought-joggers out there.  If you are having trouble blogging, write about it.  Seems like that would be the best cure.

I hope that gives you a practical framework to have some blogging success, even when time is tight. What other time-saving tricks can you recommend?

Other posts that might help:

Ten ideas for the beginning blogger

Can you out-source authenticity? (Great comment section!)

Successful business blogging in just one step

Blogging is the ultimate team sport

How to be a ghost blogger

Zappos* is a successful company with a well-publicized, aggressive employee use of social media.  In fact, it may be the most famous social media model in all of blogdom. They have 13 blogs, 50,000 videos and their employees tweet like rabbits in heat.  It’s worked for them and it’s a wonderful case study. I get it.  But it’s probably the wrong model for most companies.   

And here’s the point where the waves of Zappo-sniffing social media purists come crashing down on me.  So be it.  This is dangerous stuff. 

It is relatively safe to blog and tweet about shoes.  But in many companies, the risk of an all-employee social media free love policy will far outweigh the benefits.  For many important companies all it will take is one Twitter-induced SEC violation, a leak of vital competitive information, or a national defense breach, and the hammer will come down on the use of social media forever. Policies are usually made to deal with the lowest common denominator.

Is this a leadership issue? Not necessarily. There are irresponsible people everywhere.  There are disgruntled employees even in the best-managed companies.   Where corruption can occur it will occur. Welcome to the human race.

So what’s the answer?

Under the following conditions, the Zappos model might be ideal:

• Company culture supports employee engagement
• Company leadership understands the model
• Customer base is active on the social web in a meaningful way
• Benefits outweigh risk of security breach

If just one of these conditions are not met, the free love policy cannot work. 

That’s not to say that social media won’t work in some form with almost any company if there is appropriate training, role clarity, effective policy and boundaries. But you have to fit the tactics to the strategy — and the culture — just like any initiative. 

A marketing leader has to make effective decisions based on what IS, not on what you WISH for. You can’t “will” a social media effort to work in your company just because it worked in the Zappos corporate culture.

For an excellent and thorough perspective on the need for effective and appropriate corporate social media policies, I recommend Kent Huffman’s recent post on the subject.

OK, your turn. Let ‘er rip!

*If you are unfamiliar with the Zappos social media model, Jeff Bullas has written wonderful case studies on this company:

• How Does Social Media Help Deliver On Zappos’s 10 Core Company Values

• Why Would Your Company Need 13 Blogs?

• Revelations On How An Online Retailer Went From Zero to $1.2 Billion

• 6 Ways Zappos Uses Twitter To Increase Sales