social media marketing strategy Archives | Page 2 of 2

How to end a client relationship

This post is especially important for agency partners who are striving to build and maintain business with a client. It’s written from my vantage point as the “client”, and summarizes my thoughts on ways to successfully end a client relationship, obviously a list of “what not to do”. Certainly each should be avoided if you intend to retain a client’s business.

Reflecting on 2012, I have a lot to be thankful for and proud of. However an experience I had during this year (unfortunately it wasn’t a good one) prompted this post. I wanted to be sure to capture these points because it’s my belief that from difficult situations, lessons can be learned if you’re willing to be open to debriefing, discussing and sharing to avoid repeating them in the future.

A bit of perspective, I spent several years in the beginning of my career on the agency side of the business. I’d like to think that having done so makes me a more reasonable client, one who knows and appreciates the in’s and out’s of agency operations and one who knows it’s critical for clients to provide clear direction. I always strive to be clear with requirements, limitations and overall direction throughout each initiative. I’m also deeply committed to delivering successful programs and believe that strong partnerships are key to that success.

How to end a client relationship:

Have your agency’s goals for profitability outweigh your client’s objectives
Lose sight of the fact that the client actually hired you, you didn’t hire the client.*
Be unclear about your terms of service
Bill for services not rendered
Believe that the ideas you put forth in your engagement are in the end too valuable to allow your client to implement without changing the terms in your contract
Not recognizing and respecting your client champions
Creating issues your client champions have to escalate to their management, legal or procurement
Not responding to client change requests swiftly and in a way that proves to your client that their goals are paramount and you will help them achieve them even if changes in scope are presented along the way
Not providing change orders promptly when the scope of the project is adjusted
Not adapting to new client players and understanding if a new client player is now a key decision maker for a component of the program overseen by the client champion
Leaving your client without receiving what they expected to be delivered
Not being clear about what will be delivered
Not being clear about when delivery will happen
Not recognizing that clients are influential too, they have relationships with other business units, other agency partners and industry associations which could be used as channels to express their dissatisfaction
Not realizing that being difficult to work with out weighs the benefit and value of the work delivered, no matter how creative it may be

* Clients hire agencies on a “work for hire” contract or retainer basis. Clients document requirements & relationship terms of delivery in scope of requirements documents as well as base agreement which stipulate terms of the contract – work for hire.

I’d be interesting in knowing what you think and if you have other thoughts on this topic, please post your comments.

Trusted Experts engaged in social media are 135% more effective at generating leads

The Practice of Effective Social Business Program Management
Social gives you the ability to connect human beings with one another and ignite conversations around shared topics of interest relevant to your brands priorities. So if you’re thinking about social as just another channel to push content through, think again.

As you build your social program, identify insights and key learning’s from your listening research. Evaluate the ecosystem of people and connections. Think through how you can create a presence that will appeal to those you want to build relationships with and who would be best suited to be the focal point. Most likely, it’s not a marketer. Rather, focus on encouraging dialogue with your employees who have expertise to share. These leaders will not only have valuable knowledge, they also hold the promise to become the most trusted and credible within a relationship.

Like any other tactic or channel, social should not be approached independently but with an eye towards fulfilling your larger objectives. As you begin to think about your social plan ask yourself what role it will play in achieving your overall goals? Defining and identifying realistic ways to measure success are critical steps in creating the framework for a successful program.

Another crucial element in the early stages of developing a social program is performing listening research – this is how you get to know your audience and come to understand where they like to spend their time online and what kinds of content and tactical approaches they are most likely to respond to.

A change Agent – The emerging role of the Social Business Manager
Social business management is undertaken by people who create and engage in social digital experiences on behalf of your brand. At IBM, there’s a new role emerging, the Social Business Manager. This individual not only collaborates closely with the extended marketing management team to provide oversight for all aspects of a social business program including social listening research, planning, engagement and measurement. They also act as a change agent.

They’re driving cultural change and adoption of social through their commitment to:

Work with employees as a relationship manager and coach
Provide direction to employees on relevant influencers, external brand champions, partners and competitors within specific topic area. Help employees establish priorities which relationships to focus on.
Provide supporting assets, program guidance, training and critical feedback to those employees engaged in social outreach

Through some early pilot work I’ve been leading, we’re able to quantify that engagement with influential experts in social media is 135%* more effective at generating sales leads than traditional digital marketing tactics. Another way of saying this is, trusted SMEs who share their expertise online are 7x more likely to drive initiations with a call to action (offer) when compared to other digital marketing tactics in the same period.

This is a win-win for the brand and employees. The employees benefit from building their professional reputation and increasing their visibility in their field, while they drive the brand’s influence and support lead development in the market.

If you’re approach social as just another channel for marketers to manage and push content through, think again.

*IBM Select Social Eminence pilot 3Q2012

Building the IBM Brand in the Social Sphere

I’ve traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark to speak at the IBM Smarter Business Event.

This is my first time here and it’s an amazing vibrant city, full of old world charm and tourists from around the globe. I was lucky enough to have some time when I first arrived to tour a bit and take some snapshots to share with my family, friends and co-workers back in the US.

I’m excited to present work I’m leading, more specifically the IBM Select Social Eminence Program. This initiative empowers employees who are world-renowned for their expertise, experience, and reputation to more effectively share their knowledge across the social web. This is one of many social enterprise programs in IBM’s digital & social marketing strategy.

Skab verdens stærkeste brand, Susan Emerick, IBM US from IBM Danmark

Also presenting is my esteemed colleague Christian Carlsson @chris_carlsson, IBM Digital Leader of Denmark. He’ll be sharing Social Business Recipes from IBM’s Social Business transformation.

Favoritopskriften på Social Business, Christian Carlsson, IBM from IBM Danmark

While Christian and I have met virtually many times via collaborative communities and have shared ideas over the phone while web conferencing, there’s nothing like meeting in person face to face.

I’m also looking forward to is talking with our IBM Customers who are keen to understand what IBM’s doing to become a social business. It’s a journey, one that I’m passionate about and have been involved with shaping for a number of years.

After that, I’ll lead a discussion with MBA students about the importance of building & sustaining your personal brand online. Share tips on getting started, how to make connections with those who share your interest and provide some recommendations on what not to do.

For those attending the event, I look forward to meeting you! For those following the event, I’ll share my perspectives via Twitter #sbdk #socbiz @sfemerick

SocialMedia in the Underground World of B2B

I just returned from SXSW Interactive, it was my first experience attending this event and I was thrilled be a part of it. If you’ve heard from others that it has to be experienced to be understood, it’s true – I’ve never seen anything like it. There was an incredible vibe from the massive amount of high energy innovators who are all on a quest to lead the future of digital & social innovation. Representation ran the gamete from small start-ups to well established global brands leading the way and shaping this exciting period of our history.

I had the privilege to represent IBM Social Business leadership by participating in a panel: SocialMedia in the Underground World of B2B #SMB2B in which we discussed many of the pressing issues of implementing social media programs and leveraging social media as a competitive advantage from a leading B2B brand perspective.

Melissa Chanslor from Text 100 Moderated the panel. Participating along with me were marketing leaders Duane Schulz – Xerox, Jeanette Gibson – Cisco and Shanee Ben-Zur – NVIDIA.

6978068783_39b928c399-300x224 — Left to right: Melissa Chanslor, Shanee Ben-Zur, Jeanette Gibson, Duane Schultz and Susan Emerick – Photo courtesy of Text 100

Here’s a summary of key points I shared based on our IBM Social Business leadership initiatives:

– Conduct social listening research to better understand how and where your constituencies are participating in social and apply insights gathered from the research to your marketing planning process and tactical execution roadmap.

– Deploy subject matter experts (SMEs) to build relationships with key influencers and those that follow them based on your understanding of the social ecosystem. This approach will position limited, high value resources strategically to drive business outcomes.

– Support SMEs to build their personal as well as your brand’s reputation by implementing employee enablement programs that support high value thought leaders to engage in the right place, at the right time in a secure way. Set clear priorities for engagement.

– Help SMEs understand the many benefits of committing to sustaining engagement by sharing examples of other leaders like them who’ve successfully established a position of authority as a trusted topical thought leader.

You can listen to the panel on the podcast on demand to hear the honest dialogue and many great recommendations shared amongst the team. Thanks to Constantin Basturea you can also read a summary of the Twitter steam on Storify

Traits of Subject Matter Experts who are successfully sharing their knowledge and expertise through social networking

Over the last few years I’ve been working with colleagues across my company to provide them guidance on becoming more effective with sharing their domain knowledge through social networking and collaboration. Many Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) I’ve worked with often ask me “What characteristics are common amongst those that are the most effective and influential?” The following is a collection of my observations as well as some suggestions from my work enabling the social workforce.

Be true to yourself

Always be true to yourself when you engage in social activities. When establishing a social presence it should be an expression of who you are and what you want to share with others about what you know. Consistently present yourself, using the same tone, in every interaction and communication. Know yourself and be authentic. Be Genuine. Be Real. Be yourself – only you can do that!

Putting yourself out there

I find that the SMEs who become known are those that are comfortable collaborating, commenting, and publishing in social environments in a sustained and highly engaged way. You should assess your comfort level with establishing a public persona. By nature, being active on social means you are putting yourself out in public. When doing so, being honest about who you are and what you know is critical. You need to be comfortable and have a willingness to share your name, your thoughts, opinions, and recommendations to help others who seek your domain expertise. Doing so will help build your character and establish credibility. As you think this through, know your limitations. If you are not comfortable with sharing your knowledge and expertise in such a public forum, you should recognize and respect that.

What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish?

Are you looking to monitor competitors, connect more closely with your customers, or to establish yourself as a prominent thought leader in a particular area? Think about your goals and what you want to accomplish before you get started. Establishing goals will help you to be true to yourself, know your limitations or obstacles as well as provide you context for which tools and venues you should consider as best fit to match your intentions.

Know your audience

Successful SMEs listen to their audience and are willing to leverage listening tools to gather social intelligence and identify the existing social graphs of those they most want to connect with. Consider enhancing your online professional network by:

– Studying your target audiences wants and needs

– What questions are they most commonly asking?

– What issues/problems are they looking to solve?

– Understand the knowledge sought – do you have something of value to offer? Knowing what is happening TODAY in product or technology vertical is critical

Gather social intelligence to better understand the social ecosystem

– Pay attention to where they most often participating on-line

– Which venues? Which communities? Which forums?

– Who are they connected to?

– Who are they influenced by?

– Are you connected with them? If not, why not? Perhaps you should be

Know the rules for engagement

If you are sharing your professional knowledge about a brand or product, you should be sure that you understand the way that topic, brand or product should be represented.

– How should the technology, product or brand be referenced?

– Understand the messaging

– Understand the keywords and natural language your audience uses to discuss the topic, brand or product

– Understand what is OK or NOT OK to share

– What digital assets are available for you to share which would help you help your audience further understand?

Only the passionate survive!

Those that have deep subject matter expertise to share and are passionate believers that knowledge they possess is of interest and will benefit the community they intend to share it with, are the most successful at building a degree of influence. They are relationship builders at heart, who are comfortable with and find value in creating relationships digitally. Successful SMEs are on a quest to make connections and deepen relationships with those who are seeking and understanding of the topic that they are passionate about.

Commitment to sustained engagement

A key trait of successful SMEs is commitment. They strive to sustain engagement long term, while growing and evolving their participation over time to achieve personal and business objectives. They understand that it takes time to build credibility, trust and a degree of influence. They understand that it requires a long-term strategy.

Inquiring minds want to know

Curious by nature engaged SMEs don’t pretend to have all the answers. They know that ambiguity breads commentary and feedback. They often leave the last word to their audience. Doing so allows them to learn more about their audiences needs. It also provides them a way to be responsive to the topic/discussion in a more engaged and relevant way.

Karma

Successful SMEs understand the basic premise of cause and effect, what goes around comes around. They strive to serve the needs of others while receiving insights for themselves. They know that what they publish is permanent and can not be taken back. Remember, if you publish something inappropriate, embarrassing, or hurtful, there will be a record for years to come.

Do you have ideas to share on guiding and enabling SMEs? I’d love to hear them.

Defining your social strategy

As you begin planning your social strategy, it’s important to do so with a focus on customer relevance.

You should learn how your target audience is currently using social media, how they’re engaging, what their general preferences are and where they’re participating most often. Looking at a combination of these factors will help you ascertain the value of one given venue versus another, and help ensure your engagement plan is on track with an eye towards maximizing potential. The best way to get started is to develop an ongoing social listening practice that informs your overall social outreach plans. Doing so will ensure that you are targeting your audience with precision.

Social engagement planning with your target audience top of mind

For each social outreach effort, you must determine who you are trying to reach. Historically, this has been done through market segmentation, but the rise of digital media requires us to think differently about the people we wish to engage and how best to connect with them. You should define your target audience sets and then consider:

Who are you really trying to reach?

How will you identify & locate these target audience(s)?

What are their demographics?

Where do they most often participate online?

What are their issues & ambitions?

How do you describe their current relationship to your organization?

Are they positive, negative or neutral toward your brand?

What are their shared pain points and interests?

Once you have these answers, work to define the value your brand provides to the target audience and build a team of Subject Matter Experts who can engage with the audience and share their domain expertise and contextually relevant content. The more targeted and specific you are up-front about your target audience, the easier it will be to create an integrated digital and social outreach plan they will respond to.

Social media can play an integral role in your brand’s overall marketing plan, but like any other tactic or channel, it should not be approached independently.

Rather, social should be incorporated into your larger digital strategy and connected to other properties where and when relevant. When planning to leverage a social presence it’s important to understand what role you expect it to play in supporting your overall business and marketing goals. This will not only help you frame your approach, it will also help put in place measures to monitor performance, progress, and success.

Social media is not just another venue used to push out content; rather, social gives you the ability to connect your target audience with with members of your brand team and other individuals who have a stake in your brand’s message. It’s about helping you develop long-term relationships.

Targeted social media marketing engagement

How will you ensure that your social marketing engagement is on target to support your brands marketing priorities?

A lot of B2B social media marketers struggle with how to sustain the social engagement of their Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) with the target audience. I’ve done a good amount of work in this area and have built an approach I call social ecosystem mapping. In this post I’ll share the inputs required for building a social map. I’ll also provide you some tips on how to organize your social coverage model, selecting the best suited SMEs for engagement and how to support them with content.

Taking the time to build a social map will position your SMEs not only to represent their expertise but also to express brand/product value in the exchange. Ultimately SMEs will be well supported to sustain social engagement long term with the target audience as brand evangelists.

Social ecosystem mapping

Here’s an outline of the steps to build an informed engagement plan based on social research and marketing priorities

Prerequisites:

1. Prioritize the idea/message for which you want to be known based on your business priorities and marketing objectives
2. Monitor the dialogue by conducting social monitoring research based on the key topics of contextual relevance
3. Analyze research findings and use the insights to inform your engagement plan and set priorities

Now you’re ready to build a map of the social ecosystem based on these insights.

By topic map out:

1. Communities and top domains for targeting
2. Influencers/Authors that are considered leading authorities in the dialogue
3. Select the best suited internal SMEs for engagement. You will want to choose those that are well positioned to provide sought after expertise and can provide business value in the exchange. (There will likely be multiple SMEs, try to map them to support the outreach based on their ability to support the progression stages mentioned in #6 below)
4. Determine the SMEs enablement requirements based on an assessment of their social readiness and develop support
5. Evaluate content requirements; determine the assets required to support SMEs in their ongoing dialogue.
6. Select assets. It’s best to map the assets out by the progression path of the dialogue. For example classify assets based on consideration stages: Awareness, Consideration, Interest, Evaluation, Final Selection, Sale and Post Sale
7. Prepare assets for digital distribution, optimizing content for search, content tagging etc.
8. Determine an editorial calendar. Timing and cadence. This will need to be built based on your content develop process.

With this social ecosystem mapping complete, you are now ready to provide it as guidance to your team of SMEs. I have found SMEs to welcome this kind of engagement guidance. It helps them to focus their time and effort in social where they will provide the most value. It also ensures that their outreach is aligned to your brands business priorities and marketing objectives. Supporting them with content at each stage ensures that they are on brand/on message. If they follow the map, they will be well positioned for effective long term engagement that will drive business outcomes.

9. Activate SMEs to establish & build relationships in targeted communities, top domains and with key influencers.

Relationship building on-line takes time. With this map SMEs will focus their efforts on nurturing the most important, high value relationships in the target segments. Ultimately, if influencers receive value from your SMEs they will become advocates & foster advocacy on behalf your brand sharing with their followers & extended networks.

10. Ongoing monitoring and measurement is imperative to ensure that you stay abreast of changes in the social ecosystem. Providing you an understanding of what’s working or not working in the engagement model. Be prepared to take action based on what the measurements are telling you. Make necessary adjustments. Measure if these adjustments have a positive or negative impact. Social ecosystems are dynamic so you will want to be fine tuning your engagement model on a regular basis.

What role does social intelligence play in empowering a social workforce?

A solid social media marketing strategy focuses employee interactions on concrete outcomes that enhance their social presence, project their expertise, stimulate innovation, and deliver business value.

To ensure that employees are focusing their interactions where they will drive business outcomes, it is important to provide them enablement support. Be sure that workforce enablement is a key part of your social media marketing strategy.

One of the first priorities of your enablement plan should include is providing market place segmentation. Gathering intelligence from monitoring on-line conversations will provide you an understanding of where your target audience participates in on-line dialogues most often, in which venues and with whom. Packaging this social intelligence into an easy to understand market segmentation road map will allow your employees to spend their valuable time and effort developing and nurturing relationships in the social ecosystem aligned to your brands objectives.

Such a road map will also allow them to begin making connections with opinion shapers, decision makers and “mavens” on topics of interest. It will help them prioritize, sub-segment and customize their communications more effectively. They will have a clearer view of where the competitors are connected or absent.

Armed with this understanding, they will be empowered to build strong relationships and become a powerful channel for sharing their expertise in the market. They will be valuable catalysts to introduce the target audience to new connections, for example to key advocates of your brand.