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A blog by Barry Flanigan |
Posted 11 February 2011 09:53am by Kim Tasso with 0 comments
Social media is now a proven and important element of most digital marketing campaigns and the majority of marketing practitioners will be comfortable with how it integrates into their existing communication programmes.
However, there is still a dearth of information on how social media integrates with and supports selling and engagement activities.
During 2010 I worked closely with Peter Abraham of Econsultancy to research the subject, and we focused on one of the most complex high value service markets, that of professional services (lawyers, accountants/consultants and surveyors).
Whereas in many companies it is common for marketing to be separated from sales, the problem is exacerbated within the professions as often the marketing and business development professionals are often not allowed to get involved in direct selling as this is undertaken by the lawyers, accountants and surveyors themselves.
Furthermore, these professionals are often unsophisticated and reluctant in their approach to selling and relationship management. However, the professions are well known for leveraging the close personal relationships that they develop with their commercial clients and for the long sales cycle.
We developed a series of best practice guidelines for how lawyers, accountants and surveyors could integrate various social media tools (and LinkedIn and Twitter turned out to be the most popular) depending on whether they were social media newbies, average users or “star” performers.
We also provided guidance for various stages of the sales cycle and the relationship management process and pulled all the elements into a preliminary model which is presented in the White Paper "The use of social media in relationship development in the professions (Lawyers, accountants and surveyors)".
Six of the main strategic lessons learned:
- Understand the sales and relationship development processes used by the organisation, teams and individuals before you attempt to see how social media might support them.
- Develop standard policies and procedures to ensure that you protect against inadvertent problems with client confidentiality, brand and reputation management, disclosure of valuable know-how and the ownership of critical contacts and network.
- Assess which vertical markets externally and which professionals internally are most enthusiastic about social media, and work with your champions in a pilot project.
This allows you to bring the early adopters (and potential mavericks) under the umbrella of the organisation’s criteria for effective use. Particularly cautious firms might explore social media by using an internal tool such as Yammer for internal communications campaigns.
- Look at existing marketing, sales and account plans and try to develop some measures by which social media activity, when incorporated into other traditional activities, can be assessed.
- Provide introductory training on appropriate social media tools, which may involve working alongside the professionals as they perform their day job and delivering new layers of complexity in bite sized pieces.
- Monitor activity and results carefully, be patient, provide regular support and encouragement, promote successes (however small or anecdotal) and allow social media use to develop in line with experience and update the best practice guidelines and systems regularly.
Six of the top operational tool tips were:
- Using social media as a method to learn more about markets, organisations and individuals. A targeted form of market listening in order to gain insight into trends, needs and opportunities and map client-side relationships.
- Using location based social media, particularly those providing information on different aspects of individual’s preferences, habits and places frequented, to learn about and connect with different members of the decision making unit.
- Consider how to integrate social media contacts and connections with traditional “centralised” databases, sales automation and CRM systems.
- Ensure that corporate and personal brands (business and self profiles) are aligned and that consistent key messages about specific strengths and expertise are promoted through all channels.
- Using the traditional networking advice of “Giver’s Gain” and using social media to add value to every interaction with existing and potential clients through a careful shared content strategy.
- Use status updates, particularly on professional and business networks such as LinkedIn, on a regular basis to ensure that you remain “on the radar” of a large number of contacts with ease – and provide hooks to prompt interaction.
Learn more...
The use of social media in relationship development in the professions (Lawyers, accountants and surveyors is free to registered users (bronze Econsultancy members and higher). Inside, it contains the latest market trends, best practices, statistics, useful resources and case studies relating to social media and the professional services industry.
Other social media resources, from Econsultancy's vast content includes the Social Media and Online PR Report, produced in association with bigmouthmedia, which is the most comprehensive study of its kind around the strategies, tactics and websites companies are using to harness social media for marketing, sales, customer service and other business objectives. Econsultancy has also released a specialist 90-page guide, How to create amazing Facebook Pages, which will provide you with all the detail you need to build - or overhaul - a Facebook Page.
Kim Tasso is Managing Director at Practical Marketing Consultancy Ltd and a guest blogger on Econsultancy.
http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7141-six-top-tips-for-integrating-social-medi...
Starbucks, Mazda and Argos sign up for Facebook Deals
By Ed Owen, marketingmagazine.co.uk, 31 January 2011, 09:40AM
The UK version of Facebook Deals launches today (31 January), offering Facebook users who "check in" using the Facebook Places feature on their mobile app, access to special offers and other deals.
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Facebook Deals: UK version launches today
People using the Facebook app already have the opportunity to check in to show friends where they are, and restaurants and shops are already popular check-in spots.
Once checked in, users will now gain access to deals offered by third parties.
Starbucks will give away 30,000 cups of coffee to people who check-in today.
Debenhams will give away 1,000 sets of mascara and makeovers.
Mazda will give away 5 cars for 5 months, and those who check-in will get a 20% discount on certain models. Those who check in at Alton Towers on 18 February will gain free access.
Argos and Benetton will have deals linked to charitable donations. YoSushi will give away 1,000 free plates and O2 have also signed-up, and will offer Playstations on Saturday.
Theme park Alton Towers will be offering free entry to all users who check-in on Friday 18th February; there will also be 100 free rooms at the park’s two themed hotels available for the first 100 people who check in.
Joanna Shields, vice-president of Facebook for Europe, the Middle East and Africa said: "For the first time in history we can make these deals at scale, at real time and for free."
Gap, Starbucks, McDonald's and H&M are some of the brands to have partnered with Facebook for the US launch of Facebook Deals, each offering something to users who check in at their stores.
The Facebook Deals service initially launched in November in the US, but for iPhone users only. Facebook released an update for Android users on Friday.
The service will roll out in the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany today.
Facebook Deals combines the mass-buying potential of Groupon with the location-based gaming of Foursquare, and the Facebook launch should prove a major challenge to both services.
Facebook has yet to announce whether it will enter into mobile payments services, but redemptions of Facebook offers will be only be fully trackable once mobile payments systems launch through Orange and O2 later this year.
Dan Rose, vice-president of platforms and product marketing for Facebook, said last week that it was investing equally in both its own digital space and developing tools for third parties.
This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk
Yes, I realize that’s a contradiction, but it seems to capture the essence of deals such as Goldman’s investment in Facebook at a $50B valuation and Groupon’s half-complete $950 million fundraising effort. These deals are designed to provide significant liquidity for insiders (especially early investors and employees), provide a piggy bank for continued aggressive growth and establish a share price for use in acquisitions. Those are all the things that companies traditionally got from an IPO. Much has already been written about these types of deals, but with two huge ones happening it seems timely to think a bit more about them.
These deals should really be a wake-up call to politicians and regulators. They are a great example of how well-intentioned regulations can backfire. The net result of the Wall Street research settlement, SARBOX and other protections for small investors has been: small investors now have no access to the most interesting investment opportunities. Instead, these companies are going to be more or less fully developed by the time they eventually come to the public markets, with most of the upside having been captured by private investors. That’s especially annoying when it seems that with the Internet we should be seeing IPO 2.0 — direct to small investors without the historic flip opportunity for well connected investors.
These deals also serve as a powerful reminder of macroeconomic conditions and the microeconomics of Internet businesses. Despite some overall progress, the Internet is really the only sector, at least in the US, with a huge growth story. Fixed income certainly doesn’t provide an attractive investment opportunity with US Government yields of less than 3% for anything under 10 years. So it’s not surprising that there is a huge amount of money sloshing around and chasing the Internet opportunity. Within that opportunity it is now clear that — at least for consumer facing businesses — there are “winner-take-all” or “power law” type economics at work, with the #1 company often being 10x more valuable than the #2, which in turn is often 10x more valuable than anybody else.
Finally, any private company that is in a leadership position in its space would do well to make use of this fundraising environment while it lasts. These deals are beginning to look like the Internet IPOs of the bubble for another reason: At valuations in the many billions, there is little room for error. If a couple of these wind up imploding it will take much of late stage financing out for some time.
> The Rise Of The Online Influential: Business needs to learn how to engage online with influencers to reap benefits ... http://bit.ly/aCA6ic > >