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

Today’s social media podcast is part 1 of a 7 part series on assessment. Before any major endeavor we need to take inventory of our assets, attitudes, and liabilities. Working with everyone from one person businesses right up to fortune 500 companies I have developed a social media assessment process that helps take that inventory. It’s a work in progress and in it’s present form has already helped me develop strong direction and focus with my clients. I’m sharing this process to help my readers and listeners, and also of course to get feedback — what do you like? What am I missing?

This is a process we developed working with our clients at Socialized! and it takes an inventory of the following:

* Your existing website: Is it socialized with a blog, integrated with the major social networks and well optimized for search engines?

* Your social profiles: Are you maximizing the use of the major social sites that are relevant to your audience. This entails not just creating content but having relevant conversations and engaging?

* Social Media Policy: Do you have a personal or corporate social media policy that fosters a social culture and creates accountability?

* Social Media Plan: Do you have a strategic plan for launching and sustaining focused social media communications.

* Trained staff: Is your team trained in the rules of engagement and in the technical aspects of the tools they will use?

* Integration: Silo? Online/Offline? Bi-directional?: What best describes your social media use. If only one person or one department is using it then you will be faced with bottlenecks and a one dimensional communications strategy.

* Metrics, Monitoring and Measurement?: Are you using social media monitoring tools like Twitter Search, Post Rank, Google Alerts etc. to find business intelligence, identify stakeholders and get involved in the conversation.

Today’s Podcast is focused on part 1 of the assessment: Your Socialized Site or Blog and asks 12 major questions (covered in the podcast)

Area of Focus

Score /10

1) Website/blog platform: Is it based upon a platform that is social ready?

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2) Is it easy to upgrade and keep pace with social media advancements?

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3) Does it offer multiple channels/media for two-way communications?

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4) Does it aggregate online conversations about your brand and industry?

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5) Does it provide a launch point to your social media outposts?

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6) Does it provide industry standard blogging capabilities and plugins?

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7) Is it search engine friendly?

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8 ) Does it allow community contribution of content, ideas or questions?

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9) Does it include multiple methods and media to learn about how you can help?

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10) Is it easy for visitors to share all of your content on the web?

Today I had the opportunity to interview Bruce Philp author of The Orange Code and the soon to be released book Consumer Republic. We had a great discussion about the power of the consumer and our ability to vote with our pocketbooks.

Here’s what the book site says about the book:

Consumer Republic
Using brands to get what you want, make corporations behave, and maybe even save the world.

Consumer Republic is premised on the uncomfortable truth that brands give consumers power over the marketplace that is essentially political. Brands make corporations accountable for their actions and, especially now, they give those corporations something valuable to lose if they fail us. Consumer Republic faces consumers with that power, explains how we got it, and then shows how the choices we make at the cash register can change our own lives, the way that corporations go to market and, ultimately, our entire way of life. Just as an engaged citizen is essential to an effective democracy, so an engaged consumer is the key to a sustainable free market, says Consumer Republic. My new book is a challenge to all of us who consume to vote with our money… and to marketers to be ready for a future in which they will face their customers eye to eye.

 

 

Today’s podcast answers the question “Should you let your sales team publish content using social media?” I cover 5 reasons sales professionals should not be publishing content on social media and 13 reasons they should be. Here’s a brief summary of what is covered:

5 reasons why you should not let your sales team publish content using social media:

* You have hired idiots – even if you trained them they would just be motivated idiots.

* You have so much profitable business that you couldn’t handle any more

* Your product really sucks

* Your company and culture really suck

* You haven’t or will not equip them with
– The rules of engagement and a social media policy
– Training in the tools of engagement
– Accountability in place – once engaged it’s game on – have a framework support and accountability.

10 reasons why you should let your sales team publish content using social media:

* “It’s not marketing it’s talking to customers” – Scott Stratten of UnMarketing

* It adds to value added frequency

* It opens up new channels

* It can save time

* Load balance your branding

* Social CRM is the next big thing – are you cruising or are you road kill (Social CRM Podcast)

* Immediate data instead of compiled and stale data

* It makes them almost as smart as your customer

* You can see the activity

* It builds a passive pipeline and makes projections easier “If you’re talking to unqualified prospects it’s not a sales problem, it’s a marketing problem” – Zero Rejection Prospecting (Michael J Durkin and Norbert Orlewicz)

* It builds a fence around the customer

* It creates joy

* It elevates sales people above pitch artist to trusted advisor

There are many aspects to success in social media. Having a solid goal, knowing your core target market and of course monitoring social media conversations and your brand. Producing great content and engaging community are also vital. All of this has to be grounded in a solid implementation plan in order to work over the long term. A goal, great content, and community engagement are not enough to succeed using social media as a marketer, sales person or entrepreneur. We also need to ensure that we are consistent in our approach, message and community involvement.

Today’s podcast is about the importance of a social media calendar for individuals and organizations. I have also provides a social media calendar template that Jay Levinson and I developed for Guerrilla Social Media Marketing.

Have a listen, download the sample social media calendar and then let me know how it works for you.

Download the sample Social Media Calendar (WORD) and Social Media Calendar (PDF)

There are dozens of organizations out there that are effectively using social media in the not-for-profit and charity sectors. I have truly just begun to understand and study all of the fantastic case studies and success stories from events like the annual Blogathon to some of the great stuff that organizations like the Redcross have achieved through online funding.

Today’s podcast is not about some of these global examples but a very local one I had the privilege to be part of. In a 24 hour period Anthony Caridi of KasuFunding.com and I along with a very committed social media community here in Vancouver raised over $12,000 for the Make a Wish Foundation. Almost 100% of the donations came from Twitter or FaceBook connections.

Here are 10 things we discovered that worked (some of them we implemented and others we will implement next time):

1)   Organize your collateral material early for each stakeholder group

2)   Make your content easy to share, cut and paste

3)   Integrate the offline with the online and get influencer buy-in early

4)   Have multiple platforms for RSVP’ing for events

5)   Get donors with big lists and big reach to not just cut a check but use that influence and reach to promote your cause

6)   Contact people individually and ask them to do something easy

7)   Use a fundraising platform like KasuFunding.com that makes it easy for people to Tweet, share and forward information about the cause.

8)   Work close with the Charity

9)   If you are a charity leverage your stakeholder groups when social media marketing instead of using internal resources

10)  Keep your message really simple.

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Special Thanks to:

Today’s podcast is an interview with Rob Jones the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator for BuilDdirect.com. BuildDirect sells more building supplies online than any other company on the planet. Rob and I discuss how they have used social media to augment their online marketing efforts.

Why executives must invest in understanding and driving social media use in their organization.

Social media is not just another tool. It can be, but it’s a lot more for those organizations that embrace it. The challenge is it’s also not just about learning a new technology, it’s about changing the way we communicate with customers, stakeholders and staff.

This is a corporate cultural change, it’s also about embracing one of the most powerful word of mouth tools ever invented. There are huge inherent risks and opportunities presented by this. For that reason social media or online engagement initiatives in general have to be driven by the C-suite, the people who can hold others accountable and sponsor change in their organization.

In today’s social media podcast I talk about the following:

* Senior executives and their need for buy-in

* What and who to invest in

* The importance of a corporate social media policy

* How soft steps lead to ROI

* Why most social media marketing fails:

Lack of a goal

Poorly defined market

No listening

No real launch plan

Quitting too soon

The bottom-line is that social media is too important to compartmentalize or see as a pet project.What do you think?

Today’s podcast is an interview with Larry Chang author of What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School. Larry is also a seriously Sociable! guy and can be found organizing after parties at some of the biggest social media and cultural events from South by South West to conferences at major universities across North America. In fact Larry may be the 3rd best party guy and networker I have met. (Sociable! Book Launch Party). In this interview Larry and I talk about topics you don’t learn in business school such as Man Charm, how to land a super star mentor and sales skills.

Larry’s book sold out it’s first printing on Amazon but you can register for updates at Amazon by clicking on the book below:

Today’s podcast is with sales technology thought leader John Cousineau who is President of Innovative Information the creators of Amacus.  John and I have had a number of coffee chats and debates around why and how to use technology and social media to improve sales performance and customer experience. The nexus of sales and social media seems to be happening in the CRM and Social CRM space.  The question is it happening fast enough and making things more efficient or is it just giving sales people more buttons and buzzwords to worry about.

Today’s podcast is about 10 Things That Will Not Change About Social Media in 2010.  There have been 1000’s of bloggers who have put fingers to keyboard and pounded out their predictions for social media in 2010. While there’s many predictions about future technology advancements, new demographics and debatable Twitter growth there are many things that are not going to change. So here is a summary of my thoughts that are on the podcast:

10 Things That Will Not Change About Social Media in 2010

* It’s about the conversation

* It belongs to everyone

* It can’t be controlled only lead

* It works best integrated

* It doesn’t fit in the marketing ROI box

* It’s an investment

* It’s never been about the tools but those who wield them

* It’s not going away, it’s not a fad

* Experimenting with your clients money is a bad idea

* Success belongs to the storytellers