Shane Gibson's Podcast – Social Selling – B2B Sales and Influence

This podcast was created for you. I just wanted you to know that you have permission to launch. Get started, paint that picture, write that book, apply for that promotion. Have a listen to this podcast and start implementing those great ideas.

Today’s podcast is on social media phobia and why senior executives are afraid to embrace the use of social media in their organizations. Many have expressed to me the harm that can come from being social. What they don’t realize are the risks of being left out of the conversation. Have a listen and let me know what your thoughts are on this?

In sales, social media and in business doing the right thing, being social, being positive are all great BUT to create real momentum you need clarity. My good friend and mentor Fred Shadian shared with me many years ago the following statement:

“When mission is clear abundance will appear.”

This is a vital statement and principle. I discuss it in greater depth in my podcast today.

Today’s podcast is an audio recording (by the author) of Chapter 7 of Guerrilla Social Media Marketing. A book that was released (globally) this past October that I co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson. It is a full unabridged version with some side-comments from myself of course.

If you want to start reading thebook on your iPad in the next 5 minutes you can always pick up a copy at the iTunes store.

Today’s blog post and social media podcast is a collection of 36 Tweets I have posted online over the past two weeks relating to social media, leadership and marketing. I have recorded an in-depth explanation (beyond the 140 characters) in my podcast. Have a listen, have a read and add your own in the comments below.

* Social Media Fact: @Banff_Squirrel has more Twitter followers than most marketing experts.

* Social Media Tip: Content is not King [or Queen :)] Connection rapport and trust are today’s currencies.

* Social Media Tip: build the community, contribute to others success, be authentic and people will line up to help you as well.

* Social Media Tip: treat likes, followers, and connections on any network like gold. Those are votes of trust and confidence.

* Social Media Tip: Contrast keeps the conversation fresh. Vary your update and blog formats. Use multiple media to engage.

* Any social media activity that involves deception, trademark or copyright infringement isn’t guerrilla marketing. It’s lazy marketing.

* Social Media Tip: it’s not old versus new media — it’s about integrating the right media for the right market.

* Social Media Tip: In the “Thank-you Economy” don’t outsource or automate your thank-you’s.

* Social Media Tip: People will read your Tweets and blog posts in the context of their goals and needs. See through their eyes.

* Social Media Tip: Social media marketing is not a fad. BUT social media consultants now need deeper business knowledge.

* Social Media Tip: Blogging is not dead, but recycling content and cut-and-paste mentalities are getting old.

* Social Media Tip: social media strategy needs to be in-line with your business culture and integrated with your business processes.

* Social Media Tip: Having a Twitter account is like having a telephone. It’s just a tool. How are you going to use it to win?

* Social Media Tip: Being an early adopter is not enough. You need to evolve with your market and the tools to stay relevant.

* Social Media Tip: Your rules of engagement will be in context with your goals and your target market’s culture/etiquette.

* Social Media Tip: Activity doesn’t equal profitability. Activity that builds relationships = mindshare = walletshare. Build relationships.

* Want to increase the number of people that follow you back on Twitter? Try taking an interest in them. Marketing is a conversation.

* Social Media Tip: All of the engagement and trust you have built evaporates when your community finds out you outsource your conversations.

* Social Media Tip: You can go it alone, brave the storms and reach great heights by yourself. BUT half the joy is in bringing people with you

* Social Media Tip: hiring the wrong social media help can be worse than not doing it. Be prepared. Assess them & where you are starting from

* Leadership Tip: You don’t need to make someone else irrelevant to raise your profile. In fact you’re usually only hurting your brand.

* Remember it’s not a about blogging, Twitter, Facebook or the next great thing. It’s how you use it. Wisdom comes from mistakes. Experiment.

* Social Media Tip: You are never too popular to be humble. In fact no matter who you are eventually the web will humble you

Today’s podcast is about being truly sociable. You need to be social to have long-term social media success! There I said it. Plain and simple, hiding behind your computer or iPhone is only going to give you marginal long-term success. Eventually the Wizard of Oz was found out. Compared to people who are good at social media and also have great personal presence and charisma those that are solely good at being social online will not fare as well for many reasons. Have a listen to today’s podcast and tell me what you think.

Shane Gibson (@ShaneGibson) is a sales and social media speaker who has addressed over 100,000 people on stages on three continents over the past 15 years.  He is also co-author of Guerrilla Social Media Marketing and Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside-down.  When he’s not speaking or Tweeting he is in the social media trenches working with his clients as Chief Social Officer for Socialized! Ltd. a social media agency and training organization.

Too many people think a website, Twitter account or well produced video is a strategy — in reality they’re just tools. Before you invest money and time in building a brand new site, or devote more time to your social media efforts, it might be a good idea to have a plan. Feedback from many of our peers who work in a social media agency say it’s one of their common points of frustration when working with clients. Their site design can actually hinder proper search engine optimization and a visitors ability to share content once they discover it.

Today’s podcast was inspired by a couple of conversations I have had recently. The recurring issue is people and organizations revamping their websites (some spending thousands and thousands of dollars) and not having a social media strategy before doing so. Many sites are built by well meaning developers or agencies that haven’t considered what a truly social site and blog are.

I personally think organizations should have a plan, strategy and spec their sites to be social and easily adaptable to new social media tools and trends (and not cost huge amounts of money in the process). Have a listen to my podcast and let me know your thoughts on this.

Shane Gibson (@ShaneGibson) is a sales and social media speaker who has addressed over 100,000 people on stages on three continents over the past 15 years.  He is also co-author of Guerrilla Social Media Marketing and Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside-down.  When he’s not speaking or Tweeting he is in the social media trenches working with his clients as Chief Social Officer for Socialized! Ltd. a social media agency and training organization.

Today’s social media podcast is on “How to get above the noise.” With over a billion people Tweeting, posting to Facebook and blogging about everything imaginable you have a lot of competition for mind share within your target market.

Today I will talk about three things that will help you rise above the crowd:

* Consistency

* Niche and Nano-marketing

* Connecting (Connection is King. Content is secondary)

This is day 5 of my 30 day podcasting challenge. I will be posting a new podcast everyday for the next 30 days. If you would like to contribute as a guest on the show e-mail me [email protected]. Otherwise a comment, tweet or Facebook share would be greatly appreciated.

Today’s podcast is more of a rant. We cover everything from customers service, the dangers of believing what you see on Infographics, and my response to Peter Shankmans comments on “Why All Social Media Experts Need To Die in a Fire.”

I cover it briefly in the podcast but here’s my thoughts on Shankman’s statements. It’s been a full week since the post but people keep emailing me asking my opinion on his blog post. (On a side note: nice work on Peter’s part for all the traffic generated).

Here’s my response to a client:

Instead of becoming a best seller like Guy Kawasaki he feels he needs to put down the entire industry to prove his superiority.

There are good and bad accountants, lawyers, authors, sales trainers, digital agencies and Apple “experts” out there. Shankman points out the obvious: be a good marketer, be customer service orientated, don’t misspell stuff, don’t let an intern do your social media. But you do need to help your team effectively socialize… and many of the social media disaster stories we read about every week come from companies that went it alone and didn’t get mentorship or study bast practices that already exist.

Social media is just a tool, you do need a strategy, an understanding of your customer and yes it should be integrated into multiple departments and with the rest of your business, marketing and customer service strategy. (Integration was one of the parts of your assessment).

I do not have a lot of love or time for people giving bad, ill-informed advice and misleading people or as Guy calls it

“Enchanting Gullible People.” There are a lot of clueless experts out there selling useless crap. On the other hand people like Shankman who want to group everyone and everything into on pile and suggest they should be burned to death really helps no one.

The bottom line: marketing and sales success principles will prevail… but the platforms for engagement have changed and customer tolerance for pitching or in-authentic engagement has decreased. We are in a new era with new opportunities (and new risks).

Have a listen to today’s podcast rant and let me know what you think!

Today’s podcast is an interview with @JessicaNorthey, a very sociable social media strategist with a background in broadcast media specializing in helping radio stations and music artists use social media efficiently. Update: She also happens to be ranked as the #1 Most Influential Woman on Twitter by Twitter Grader. We recently exchanged a few tweets on authenticity in social media and after looking at the great work Jessica is doing I asked her to do an interview.

Here’s an excerpt from her bio:

Jessica Northey, SocialMediologist

(Social=Friendly, Media=Form of Communication, Ology=Study Of)

Tucson Native Jessica Northey is taking over Country Music and Radio one Tweet at a time. Specializing in, using Social Media when you ARE the brand, breaking new artists and strategic use of Social Media for Broadcasting; her optimization techniques are being implemented at top stations across the nation, and her writings/methods instructional material for various programs from Real Estate to the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.

She is a Social Media, Broadcasting, Country and Music Blogger/Writer, Nationally Recognized Speaker, On-Air Personality, Daily Columnist for AllAccess.com, the web’s largest radio and music industry community, who owns Social Media boutique firm Finger Candy Media, LLC.

Having a personal network of over 140,000 followers and a second order influence of over 4 million she is consistently ranked in the top 100 most influential people on Twitter (in the world) according to TwitterGrader.com and in the October Issue of Fast Company Magazine was shown as one of the most influential people on Social Media ranking at 109.

This is day 3 of my 30 day podcasting challenge. I will be posting a new podcast everyday for the next 30 days. If you would like to contribute as a guest on the show e-mail me [email protected]. Otherwise a comment, tweet or Facebook share would be greatly appreciated.