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

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

I’d like to start with an excerpt from a a recent Gregg Morris post. This is an email from one of his associates, expressing frustration at an inability to convince small businesses to engage in social media marketing:

Social networking is making zero inroads into any of the businesses (SMBs) we have visited and interest in “mining” those networks is similarly zero.  It’s not that they are rejected as future possibilities, but rather that SMBs haven’t time for it, since they sense the costs far exceed the benefits … The facts are the facts – SMBs are still the same as they always were: overworked, scratching for dollars, but now fighting even harder for market share. They are competing not just with local competition but also with online, distant suppliers and, of course, big box retailers.

To the point: Joe average – architect, restaurant owner, retail store – are not stupid, nor are they unaware of the need to handle their customers better. All I see … is the same, stupid Social CRM Expert-type of messaging. A bunch of esoteric bullshit skimming the surface of the problem, with no real solution offered. Everywhere I look, they all say the same thing: “You have to communicate with your customer…”, “you need to serve your customer…”, “you need to do this, that or the other…”. Lots of “you needs”, but few “here’s exactly how”

This little rant hit a chord for me because I teach a social media marketing class for small businesses and I constantly hear these same concerns.

There is a business cultural gap that is keeping many SMB’s from working this channel: Typical SMB ”advertising” is a hand-off. All the work is done by an ad agency and/or the advertising sales people.  There is little personal time expenditure and the cost/benefit is usually easily measurable. Not so with social media marketing.  There is more hands-on doing and the results may not be immediate.

When I consult with small businesses, I recognize that for many, the time commitments and demands of maintaining a consistent, effective presence seems overwhelming so I help them cut through the hype and FOCUS.  I encourage them to consider five very practical questions:

1) Do I know enough about social media marketing to make the right decision for my business?  Not knowing the possibilities would be the same disadvantage as operating a business without knowing such a thing as television advertising existed.

2) What is mybusiness strategy and how could a social toolkit align with my key initiatives?

3) Are my customers using the social web?

4) Are my competitors using this channel, and what are the competitive implications if I decide to participate or not?  Could I create advantage by being an early adopter?

5) Do I have the resources, or can I acquire the resources, to conduct limited, focused experiments to see if working through the social web can provide a cost-benefit exceeding traditional advertising?

After my students walk through these questions, they usually conclude a) yes, this is something with a lot of potential and b) there are practical and manageable methods to approach this if I stay committed and focused.

Does this make sense to you?  What is your experience with SMB’s and the social web right now?

{grow} community alert: Pete Mosely, a frequent contributor to {grow} has a new eBook out on promotion fundamentals which is a nice companion piece to this blog article.

One of my favorite thought leaders and {grow} community members is John Bottom, a director at the Base One marketing agency in London.  John and I have had an on-going dialogue about the evolution of socal media and one of his recent comments caught my attention:

The people benefiting most from Twitter right now are obviously in the information businesses.  We are all marketers here and we are sharing views and ideas because that’s what we ultimately sell. If you’re selling something more physical, you need to first create the information-surround market (or at least understand the information-surround market) before you can start to get benefit from Twitter and other social media platforms.

What I mean is that, if you sell power tools, you rely on people talking about power tools online before Twitter starts to have relevance to you – and these people are taking longer to embrace Twitter than the rest of us, because our benefits are more immediate. That doesn’t mean it won’t come, but it makes it harder for us to convince them at those marketing meetings.

In this simple statement John sums up one of the biggest obstacles facing B2B marketers.

As I look at the social media landscape, at least for small and medium businesses, he appears to be correct … at least based in my own experience.  I think there are a couple of important business implications from this simple observation:

1) About 75% of Fortune 100 companies are actively involved in social media. Some of them (Boeing, GE) are industrial B2B’s.  Small businesses can learn from them to see how their brand-builidng online strategies might parallel their own.

2) This emphasizes the importance of considering social media as just one part of an overall marketing strategy.

3) It also implies the importance of doing a customer audit as part of that strategy development.  Are your customers online? If so, where?  If not, why not?  Don’t spend money in this area if the customers aren’t there.

4) One key to a successful marketing strategy is finding meaningful points of differentiation. This does not necessarily have to be in the product or service itself. It can be in HOW the goods are marketed and sold. So if competitors are not using the social web as a marketing channel and your customers are there, this can be a wonderful opportunity.

Of course this is all predicated on an assumption that B2B customers will eventually pick up on social media. I’m wondering what the timeframe will be … I have to tell you I still see a lot of blank stares at meetings with industrial clients!  What do you think about this?  Will we see a day when a larger diversity of products will benefit from the social web?

For the last two months I have been eagerly anticipating the results of Dr. Ben Hanna’s Business.com 2009 survey of corporate social media utilization.  Why is this report significant?  With nearly 3,000 valid respondents, this is probably the largest survey ever conducted on this subject and also represents one of a handful of social media research projects with a methodology and analytics that I actually trust.  Let’s get to some of the highlights and implications:

Where’s the beef? 

Some of the most interesting findings were around the hot topic of “measurement.”  About 65% of the respondents gauge success by “web traffic” followed by engagements with sales leads (57%), brand awareness (54%), customer engagement (50%) and revenue (42%).

But as the graph above indicates, most companies report they can’t see a connection between social media initiatives and success. For even those judging success by something as simple as “web traffic,” only 15% thought they were seeing progress. More confidence was expressed in the ability to impact brand reputation/awareness (33%), and engagement with sales leads (26%). Of the 609 respondents trying to track revenue, nearly 80% could not see an impact from social media initiatives.

Lack of adequate data is a problem

Another dilemma presented by the research is that most companies don’t believe they are getting adequate metrics to even measure results.

At the top end of the scale, 65% of respondents using web site traffic as a social media success metric report that the information they need to measure results is easily accessed when needed.  Those measuring brand metrics – awareness and reputation – fall to the bottom of the scale. Only 50% believe they can measure the impact of social media initiatives on this metric. I’m actually surprised the number is even that high.  

The survey also concludes that those with more experience in social media do a better job measuring impact. 

Less than 10% of the companies surveyed pay to use any monitoring service. Free apps like Google Search, Google Alerts and Twitter Search lead the pack. 

Surprises in user base

Nearly 65% of the survey’s respondents reported using social media as part of their normal work routine.  The results by job role were somewhat surprising in that respondents working in the IT department were significantly less likely than those from almost every other department to use social media. People associated with consulting, PR, real estate and marketing were heaviest users. 

Those directly involved in planning or managing company social media initiatives spend about 18 percent of their time devoted to this. Combined with other data in the research, you might conclude most companies are still “dabbling” in social media initiatives.

High community participation

I was surprised to see that over half of respondents said they participate in online business communities or forums. This is far higher than the typical 2% participation rate among monthly visitors to online blogs and communities.  The researchers explained that this difference may be due to how study respondents understood the word “participate,” possibly interpreting it as “visit,” or that the rapid expansion in the number of niche online business communities may be influencing greater usage.

Top sites being used by corporations? Facebook (80%), Twitter (56%), LinkedIn Groups (39%), LinkedIn Companies (38%), and YoutTube (35%).

All in all, very enlightening research. What do you think?  Were you as surprised by some of thes results as I was?  What’s your take on this?

Inventory — A customer in France made coated metal plates and, for quality control purposes, had to keep a large volume on hand in a warehouse. This tied up valuable working capital. We had the idea to use this as a rapid-turnaround stockpile. They could sell and ship material out of the warehouse for customer emergencies as a premium service — at a premium price!

People — A local company said they needed my help because “everyone was just sitting around” with their business levels so low. I saw this as under-utilized human capital. How could they put these people to use to connect to customers and discover un-met or under-served needs?  Turn EVERYONE into a sales person?  Study the competition?

Information — A client had developed a weekly email update to keep their salespeople on top of changing market conditions. A survey indicated their customers were hungry for the same type of information. Their email was turned into a premium information service to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. They leveraged information they already HAD to create a siginificant new customer benefit.

Services — I recently taught a class on recession marketing. The class content is now an asset, part of my “buffalo.” I turned some of the ideas into articles for my website and now, my blog. I promoted this content through online forums and social media. One article had more than 500 downloads in two days. These new contacts were added to my mailing list for further follow-up. The session was videotaped and edited into short topics for my website and YouTube.

How are you using the whole buffalo in your business?

At long last, I bring to you my valued {grow} folks, a true B2B social media success story that can really be measured by MONEY.  I believe this is the only one in the world.  ; )  And it is GENIUS!

Best of all, the success comes from one of our very own {grow}-er’s, Nathan Dube aka @DubiousMonk, a frequent comment contributor.

Nathan works in the marketing department of Expert Laser Services of  Southbridge, MA.  The company is a managed print services provider and provides printer/copier sales, service and supplies.  Nathan’s challenge was to increase awareness for his company through social media initiatives.

His idea was to let people release their technology angst by finding the most creative ways to destroy their printer — on video.  The “Destroy Your Printer Video Contest” was promoted through the company’s blog,  Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.  The oddball humor of the contest gave it a great buzz and more – web traffic more than doubled and the company gained more than 100 new inbound links. Recycler magazine did an Internet TV special about the contest as well as an article which was the most-read topics on the site for several weeks.

The submissions can be found here and they are hilarious.  The winning entry involves a backhoe (but I think the dynamite should have won: “We’re approaching the target!”).

Momentum for the contest picked up as people fell in love with the crazy ways people destroyed their printers.  One fan was an employee of nearby Telesian Technologies, who called up Expert Laser Services and asked them to be their new service provider.

That’s right.  New business. Money in the bank from a social media victory.

Nathan said getting a new customer was just icing on the cake. “The focus of the contest  was not ‘let’s get customers’,” he said. ” The focus was to drive more traffic to the website, build inbound links, and create good content.  The fact that we landed a new service and repair customer was not our goal, but it happened.”

And to make a happy ending even happier, the winner of the contest, Cottage Revolution of Wales, MA, donated their winning toner cartridges to Catholic Charities.

a) If you don’t know if this trend is applicable to you (hint: it probably is), it’s important to find out! Tap into your existing data to discover core users and trends. If you’re not a data person, I know two people who can do this type of analysis quickly and affordably. Drop me a note or call me and let me know if you need a reference.

b) Word of mouth is 4X more effective than personal selling and 7X more effective than most types of traditional advertising. If your fanatics are driving sales better than any marketing effort you could dream of, what are you doing to make it easy for them? Wouldn’t fanatic-focused marketing be the most effective ad dollars you can spend?

c) Surround your 4 percent with the tools to help them recruit others to your brand. Ideas – special deals, gifts, logo-clothes, programs available for them to pass on to friends.

d) These people want to give back to your brand. How do you engage them, encourage them, and listen to them in a special and personalized way? Ideas: Invite them to special one-on-one sessions with company employees and executives; develop personal portal websites where they can submit ideas, stories, photos; feature them in your ads and promotions.

e) If you are building your brand with a limited budget, don’t focus your marketing dollars on the masses. Start small with your core fanatics.

f) Now that you have identified and nurtured your core 4 percent, how do you replicate them? Do a simple profiling exercise. Click here for a previous article that will give you ideas on how to do this quickly.

g) Here’s the most important point of all – LISTEN to them. These people are your leading indicators of customer satisfaction and a potentially powerful source of innovation who WANT to help you! Dig deep. Spend time with these people! Show them the love!

Illustration: Cheryy8_15

You might want to spend a period of time tweeting to nobody, simply to build some “profile collateral” that gives people an understanding of who you are, what your interest or industry is and how your being in their network adds value to their Twitter experience.

Equip your profile with the means to make the right first impression, including a nice photo and an interesting and accurate short bio. Otherwise, potential connections will have no reason to stay with you beyond that initial contact that you have worked so hard to establish. The short bio plays an important role when people are trying to find like-minded people to follow.

Chris Hughes has worked in the contact center and business process outsourcing industry for about 16 years. He would really, really love for you to connect with him on Twitter at @chrishughesuk.