Dec 2 2009

“Flexibility” Key to Social Media Success: Q&A with Progress DataDirect

December 2, 2009 – 4:00 pm

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After repeatedly hearing how executive buy-in is critical to social media success, I decided to sit down with April Harned, the Director of Communications at Progress DataDirect to see what was her magic formula. My podcast with April will tell you how a B2B company embraced social media and started reaping the results of a successful blog, Data Connections. Yes, the podcast is a little long but trust me if you are still on the fence with corporate blogging, you want to take 10 minutes to either listen or read the transcribed version below.

Priya Ramesh: Thank you April for joining us today. We’re very excited to speak to you about how Progress DataDirect has embraced social media and share your experience in making social media a part of your overall PR process. Could you please give us a brief intro to yourself and Progress DataDirect?

April Harned: Sure. I’m April Harned, the director of communications for Progress DataDirect, formally known as DataDirect Technologies. We are the world’s leader in data connectivity and mainframe integration. Some say that we’re the industry standard for standards based data access. Progress DataDirect is now the data infrastructure division of Progress Software, which is a leading provider of software to enable enterprises to be operationally receptive.

Priya Ramesh:Excellent! April, do you want to tell us what was the defining moment when you said, “Okay, I think it’s time for us to start leveraging the power of social media.” And walk us through your decision making process in implementing social media at Progress DataDirect?

April Harned: Well having been a ten year veteran of the PR agency world and keeping up on latest trends impacting our industry, I noticed that more and more people were embracing social media tools and tactics. I knew that was the future of a successful PR program. So we made initial efforts to research third party firms that could help us educate our internal audiences and decision makers on the importance of social media and help us create a foundation to get started, and then build upon.

Priya Ramesh: Could you tell us more about what were some of the initial steps you took in implementing a social media program?  Where you focused on a blog as a first step, creating a thought leadership position using a blog, and then eventually taking your brand to Facebook and Twitter. Tell us how you went about selecting what media to choose.

April Harned: Well the problem we had faced initially was that several internal thought leaders had maintained their own blogs separately. So we knew we wanted to bring those blogs together under one corporate umbrella where we could more easily manage traffic, as well as topics that were being addressed, etc. So that was initiative number one. Secondly, we knew that we also needed to embrace other tools that were becoming very popular by not only our customer and prospects, but the software community at large. By that we mean, not only blogging but the growing presence of Facebook at the time and the importance of being on LinkedIn, and at the time, the new phenomenon was Twitter that more and more people seem to be embracing.

The blog was definitely our first concern; its not only bringing all of those under one umbrella, but then to encourage other internal resources and thought leaders to be more active within the blogosphere and to demonstrate the value that the blog would bring to our marketing and sales efforts.

Priya Ramesh: That’s great. We’ve seen from an agency perspective, that’s pretty much the first step that a lot of the B2B companies take, start off with a corporate blog and start aggregating industry leading topics and eventually take that content to Facebook and Twitter. So I think you guys were very smart to start off with Data Connections and see such increased traffic through your blog to your main corporate Website. Well done there.

April, one of the things that keeps repeating when we talk to communication professionals, people like you, is the fact that there is this huge roadblock when you have to get your executives and top management to say, “Yes, let’s do social media.” Because with social media comes that loosing some control over messaging, and loosing a little control over your brand, and opening that door to your community online and having a conversation, which is two way. Did you save any organizational challenges as you got started to implementing social media at Progress DataDirect? And, if yes, could you share with us how you overcame some of those challenges? I think that would be very beneficial to some of our listeners and companies out there still kind of struggling to overcome that roadblock.

April Harned: Well first and foremost, I think that our real problem wasn’t necessarily their concern about not being able to control the message, but rather the time commitment that was involved. Just a misunderstanding or misconceptions of how much of their time might be needed for participating in the blogosphere. How we overcame that was – I could tout day and night why we needed to be more active in the blogosphere and with social media tools, but it just seemed to be falling on deaf ears, and maybe because I’m an internal resource – we felt the best strategy to convince the leadership team was by the importance that we needed to be out there and needed to be active, not only to communicate with our communities, but to drive sales. In an effort to do that we thought it was very important to have a third party, unbiased expert come in via an agency. So that was definitely the route that we looked to take.

Again, even to this day, I don’t ever hear any real concern about controlling the message. I think that if you’re out in the blogosphere, and I think our participation there is pretty well maintained, I work closely with all of the bloggers to ensure that they’re not going out there with something that we as an organization don’t feel comfortable with or that might get us into some legal hot water. We’re very conscientious about what we put out there, but at the same time we want to answer our community’s most pressing questions. We listen and we respond accordingly.

Priya Ramesh: That’s fantastic. That leads us to our next question: Progress DataDirect has done an excellent job of getting some of your senior executive team members to take that time that you just talked about and, not just that they’re actually very active, they’re actually very passionate  about Data Connections; they want to talk about some of the hot topics that matter the most to your audience online, and having worked from an agency perspective on Data Connections for you, we’re just so happy to be talking to some of your senior like Gregg Willhoit who’s a thought leader in the IT space, taking the time with his busy schedule to actively blog and talk about key industry topics on Data Connections. Any tips, advice that you can share with our listeners today on how you manage to get your senior staff to embrace social media?

April Harned: I would say that, that was definitely our biggest hurdle, and an ongoing challenge. The way that we overcame it was giving them a taste of the success that can be achieved through social media. While they were reluctant, and when kicking and screaming, once they had a taste of how it could be used effectively they were sold. For instance, with Gregg Willhoit, from the get go he was concerned about the time commitment of actually sitting down and writing blog posts – he just didn’t see that happening throughout the course of his day. So what CRT/tanaka advised, and I think it has been quite successful, is doing once a month a one hour podcast where we go through and ask him in a Q&A type format various questions that relate to product news or industry trends that we’re seeing, or competitive news. And he goes into great detail about each of those topics, and then we edit those podcasts and get it on the blog with transcription services provided as well. So that has been a great tool to get the content we need up on the blog, but at the same time not spend too much of Gregg’s time throughout the course of the month – only one hour. So he’s definitely bought in there.

And then in terms of his conversion, from a skeptic to a fan, has really been with some recent competitive events that we’ve been able to get our positioning quickly up on the blog and not have to go through the legal, corporate, bureaucratic channels to get our position up and quickly, and then point media to how we differ from this other particular competitor in the space has really done wonders. So there is a lot of confusion out there on how the DataDirect Shadow product differs from Neon zPrime, and through the blog we’re able to constantly answer and clarify those concerns by the market place. So we’re often pointing people to the blog in order for people to get that quick fix, both from prospects that are unclear, as well as media that have some confusion on how our product differs from another competitor.

Priya Ramesh: April, I think you hit a key point in how a company can use blogs as that extended platform to communicate different things that you may or may not be able to do on your Website or through a press release or some of the traditional modes of communication. It just gives you that much more ability to clarify things or be able to comment on some industry topics or even on some of your competitors. I think that’s a great way on how you have taken Data Connections as that extended medium to engage in more meaningful conversations and leverage to get beyond the traditional modes. So that’s great.

April Harned: In that respect, too, we’ve found some of our blog posts being included in extra articles in the mainframe space. So that’s exciting to see.

Priya Ramesh: From a PR perspective, and April we know how metric driven you are and that’s great because one of the challenges of the PR profession is always being able to explain ROI, the tangible benefits of your PR efforts. So with social media, would you mind sharing some of your ROI and some of the tangible benefits you have realized?

April Harned: Just from a traditional PR standpoint, obviously, I’ll address how we use blog posts to pitch the media as well. So I think it offers us real time information sharing that is so difficult. In terms of metrics, it is very difficult to measure the success of PR programs through traditional media. You can say, we had ten hits, but you really aren’t sure if those hits in traditional media outlets are driving traffic to your Website, or helping with sales. You might hear some anecdotal stories here and there, but just a very difficult activity to measure.

With social media, there’s so many tools in place, through Google Analytics and our own analytics program, Omniture where you can easily track how certain blog posts have fared, what the traffic has been, how much of the traffic is moving from your blog to the DataDirect.com as well as our rankings within search engine optimization. I know recently that when you type in mainframe middleware we’re the third term, right below IBM. That’s a big success measure that resonates within internal audiences as well. So it’s always about keeping them happy, and keeping them in the know. They might not understand all that goes on under the covers, but they certainly understand when you can say that you’re third, behind IBM, on Google. I think that’s been a huge success for us, and just the volume of traffic that’s coming to the blog now verses what it was 6 months ago on the three various blogs. That’s up from a few hundred to now a few thousand a month.

Priya Ramesh: And I know we’ve noted visitors being directed to your main Website, DataDirect.com, which is a huge metric that we’ve accomplished through social media. Now that we’re in the last quarter of 2009, and all of us are putting together the budgets for 2010, as a PR professional, as someone who has embraced social media, do you think that it is here to stay? It is probably a no brainer question, but what are your thoughts on the future of social media? And more and more companies, especially in the IT industry such as Progress DataDirect embracing it and taking it to the next level.

April Harned: I think that PR as a profession will no longer exist. I think traditional media will still have its place, but I think social media in the years to come is really where the profession is heading. So companies that want to get their name out there, and that are accustomed to and have bought into PR programs much embrace social media or they will be left behind. So I think that it’s critical, and I think that corporate blogs are going to be kind of taking on more and more. Almost becoming their own news room, if you will. I think that traditional media outlets are going to become thinner and thinner, and companies are going to go directly to the source, verses the third party media outlets.

Priya Ramesh: That’s a fair statement to make, definitely. With that I want to wrap up with some advice from you, any lessons learned. Every company has to go through a process when they implement something new. I’m sure with the social media implementation there are some lessons that you learned or the marketing team at Progress DataDirect went through. So any advice to other companies that are just getting started would be very helpful.

April Harned: I would say be prepared for change. I think that I wasn’t as prepared – I didn’t prepare myself for the time that it was going to take to not only help manage expectations internally, but insure that myself and that those that were involved in the program were educated, and that we continue to educate ourselves because I feel like there’s new tools and new techniques available, almost on a daily basis that I need to get up to speed on in order to be successful. And to insure that we are using the best tools available to us. Those that make the most sense for our organization and our corporate culture. I would advise people to read up on what’s available, and definitely ask the expertise of their firm to help them guide through the processes.

Priya Ramesh: That’s a great point: Flexibility is key to social media. Facebook and Twitter are here to stay, but then every day we see a new trend or a new tool out there.

April Harned: And they enhance those staples.

Priya Ramesh: And at the end of the day I think it’s not just about tools, it’s about making the connections with your audience online. I see a lot of people get a little bogged down by let’s have a Facebook campaign or a Twitter campaign without thinking through, why is it that you want to be on Facebook or Twitter? What kind of conversations would you like to have with your target audience? Definitely, flexibility is key, and having that open mind to social media definitely drives success at the end of the day.

Thank you so much, April, for taking the time to speak with CRT/tanaka and sharing some of your experiences with social media. And we only look forward to continued success for DataDirect.

April Harned: Thank you for all of your efforts. It’s been a hectic six months, but a very successful one. I’m very proud.

Priya Ramesh: We have enjoyed working with you. Thank you.

Image Source: http://morning-breath.com/Flexibility.jpg

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Priya Ramesh | Posted in Blogging, Case Study, Internet Marketing, Interviews, social media | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)
Sep 24 2009

BlogPotomac Emcee Shonali Burke Discusses Social Media

September 24, 2009 – 9:55 am

Headshot personal small This begins an informal series of interviews with the people who are speaking at the Final BlogPotomac (October 23, at the State Theatre, register today!), and what better person to begin with than the emcee? Shonali Burke is the incoming  president of IABC-DC, and adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University’s Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. Her 13+ years of experience include a stint as the ASPCA’s award-winning Vice President for Media & Communications. In 2007, PRWeek named her to its inaugural “top 40 Under 40” list of U.S. public relations professionals.

GL: What social media application or network is really exciting you today and why?

SB: Twitter. I think we saw a sea change in attitudes earlier this year with more people moving from the "I don’t get it" bandwagon to the "I can really make this work for me/my business/my cause," though the first of those will probably still pop up for a while to come.

What I love about Twitter is the way it has opened my world to new people, ideas and relationships; and it’s also increased my engagement with folks I know "IRL" but probably didn’t get a chance to talk to all that much. As a relatively new blogger, it has done more for my blog traffic than anything else I could have conceived; since I started blogging after I was extremely comfortable on Twitter, I had a built in network to disseminate my posts among. Finally, it’s been amazing as a way to begin conversations that help build my consulting business and speaking engagements.

GL: In your mind, what’s the biggest barrier facing corporate adoption of social?

SB: Since I don’t work in a corporate setting, I can’t speak from in house experience. What I’ve noticed, heard, been told and read about, though, is that there is still some element of fear of releasing control over messaging.

Here’s a news flash (not): you may have thought you had control with carefully crafted messages in press releases, etc., but the minute they were out the door, you had no control over how that messaging was disseminated, ultimately ended up in the public eye and impacted your business objectives or perception of your brand. Seth Godin had a great post today on not controlling the conversation, but trying to organize it, and that’s what I think they need to understand.

The other thing I think is really important for corporates (or any organizations) to remember is that every single employee is potentially your biggest brand ambassador. If you try to clamp down on social media, you’re ignoring a huge opportunity to empower your employees as evangelizers.

Almost everyone is engaged in some social media network or other; instead of trying to dictate to them what they can or cannot do on a social media level, why not educate them so that if they do have an opportunity to engage in a conversation about your company, they can be your ambassadors? Certainly, you should help them understand the do’s and don’ts of personal v. professional engagement. But if you invest in it, this could potentially open up a huge new customer base for you as it humanizes your brand.

GL: What current or future technology do you see impacting social the most over the next five years?

SB: Ha, this is the second question in a row I almost started with "I don’t…" ! Speaking as a non-techie, quasi-geek (I say "quasi" because of the afore-mentioned non-techiness) I think the technology that will really take off is the kind that lets people connect more quickly, more seamlessly and in a more integrated fashion over several networks. I have no idea what that is in tech-speak.

GL: Do you think social media has positively or negatively impacted society and why?

SB: For the most part, positively. It’s broken down barriers that folks may not ever have dreamed of surmounting. It’s allowed people from different walks of life, backgrounds and time zones to meet each other and engage in dialog, and has the potential to harness and focus energies that were previously restricted.

You just have to look at any of the hugely collaborative non-profit campaigns that have used social media, such as the Pledge to End Hunger, to see how social media can have an extremely positive impact. Beth Kanter writes about these all the time.

Of course there is a danger of letting your online "life" take over your "real" life, but I think that’s more a function of a world that’s evolving minute-by-minute on a technological level, and understanding how to adjust to that. At the end of the day, we’re human, and that’s how and why we connect; stop being human, and you’ll stop connecting. Social media is a great point of connection, and humanizing it is what makes that connection rich.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Interviews | Tagged , , , | Comments (17)
Aug 13 2009

@DCTwestival Beneficiary Miriam’s Kitchen Gets Social

August 13, 2009 – 9:37 am

Jenn@DCTwestival is  right around the corner (September 10, register  today), and the beneficiary is Miriam’s Kitchen. Miriam’s Kitchen was chosen for a variety of reasons. Miriam’s Kitchen provides healthy, homemade meals and comprehensive case management services to the homeless (image from Miriam Kitchen’s Flickr feed). It has a healthy Twitter and general social media presence, but could benefit from some additional social media training and support.

As a member of the DC Twestival planning committee, it seemed appropriate to interview Miriam’s Kitchen Head of Social Media Jennifer Roccanti about the event, and social media. And yeah, I asked some hardball questions for my marketing friends.

Q: How does it feel to be the DC Twestival beneficiary?

A: As an organization, we are so grateful to the Twestival committee for selecting us to benefit from this awesome event. It gives us the chance to meet new people and connect in person with those we’ve meet through twitter. Most importantly though, it allows us to make connections and raise money to continue providing high quality services to our guests.

twestivalQ: What do you hope to get from DC Twestival (besides funds)?

A: Everything we do is for our guests, the homeless men and women of Washington, DC. Twestival gives us another opportunity for us to share their stories with our community and to make connections with people who truly care. We are excited to build those connections at Twestival and bring even more people into the Miriam’s Kitchen community.

Q: Your social media effort has been lauded by traditional media, but how have the online masses received you?

A: The friends we’ve made through twitter are some of the most generous people I’ve ever met. @barleyandbirch, @kristymyers, @richdevans, @soapbuddy…those are just a few of the dozens of people on twitter who have made a difference in our guests ‘ lives. I can’t say enough about the community that has welcomed us on twitter. They are truly amazing.

Q: I noticed you shoot a lot of links out on Twitter, but you don’t seem to engage in conversation. Is there a reason for that?

A: We definitely do talk to our twitter community, we just do it through DM and email and in person. The reason we don’t do many @ replies is because it feeds onto the homepage of our website and while we have tried to filter out the @ replies from the feed, we haven’t had any luck yet. (if you know of anyone who can help us, let me know!).

So…because people who aren’t familiar with twitter are seeing that feed on our website we felt it would be best to keep those conversations private. Also, since this is an organizational twitter page, we wanted to keep it as clean as possible and not have a jumble of @replies on our page that might not be interesting to anyone else.

However, if someone on twitter deserves kudos for something they’ve done for our guests, we don’t hesitate to give them a shout out (hi @barleyandbirch!). Long story short, we do have conversations with our twitter community, we just choose to keep them mostly private.

Q: So if social media is conversational, what do you think of the conversations you see online?

A: We are fortunate to have been invited into those conversations, both positive and not so positive. For those not so positive conversations, we’ve been given the chance to tell our side of the story. To defend our way of doing things (which is always in the best interests of our guests). Conversely, those positive conversations give us an opportunity to give people a glimpse into the lives and struggles of our guests. It has become a powerful vehicle for telling their stories and we are so grateful for that.

Q: What’s your favorite social media tool?

A: Twitter. Hands down.

Q: What’s next for Miriam’s Kitchen online?

A: Continuing to build relationships online and bringing even more of those supporters into the Miriam’s Kitchen community off line. Integrating more video into the stories we tell. We are also working with some of our guests to help them get more acclimated with social media. So many of them are already online and a few are on Twitter, Facebook, etc… Social media gives them a way to tell their stories and to record their lives.

They are so often ignored in public but social media allows them to even the playing field and be treated the way they should always be treated…with dignity and respect. I’d like to see what we can do with our guests and social media. I think they could really benefit. So stay tuned…

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Interviews, social cause | Tagged , | Comments (22)
Jul 1 2009

Inside Mashable’s Summer of Social Good

July 1, 2009 – 9:15 am

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Maybe you’ve noticed.  There’s something special going on at Mashable: The Summer of Social Good initiative. The uber technology and social media blog has created a charitable fund to benefit The Humane Society, LIVESTRONG, Oxfam America and WWF from June 1st until August 28th, 2009.  And while raising monies directly for these organizations, the media site has done more, already highlighting more than hundred voices and organizations in the social good movement.

Adam Hirsch Mashable Second in Command and COO Adam Hirsch took some time out of his busy schedule to interview with the Buzz Bin. Hirsch shed some light on this unusual and very special initiative.

GL: Why did Mashable host the Summer of Social Good initiative?

AH:  Mashable has always supported charitable movements in social media. Personally, I was very inspired by our CEO and Founder, Pete Cashmore’s birthday wish to donate money to Charity:Water. I felt there had to be a way to use Mashable’s social media influence directly to raise charitable contributions and awareness.

In February of 2009, after witnessing the Twestival growth, the idea for the Summer of Social Good was finalized and I began working on the many components and partners that you see today. We are also working on an educational event on August 28th, 2009 that will take place in New York City. Our sponsors, Zappos and Mailchimp are covering the costs of the campaign and the event, so all donations and ticket sales go to the charitable fund.

GL: How does this differentiate you from other top tier social media/tech blogs?

AH: The Mashable team is a positive and enthusiastic group that feels strongly about using our social media influence to make a difference. I believe this attitude carries over in our editorial voice, operations and initiatives. Combined with strong editorial and resource content, forward and positive thinking, we have been able to emerge and separate ourselves from other blogs.

GL: What has your reader response been?

AH: The response has been fantastic overall. We are constantly receiving positive comments, notes and emails. The Summer of Social Good is not just a straight charitable campaign, it’s also an educational platform.

Every week, we are launching a new week-long engagement to interact and share some great stories, fun projects, and rewarding opportunities. Our audience is diverse and we aim to try and include everyone this summer in one way or another. Throughout the campaign our readers have been extremely helpful.

This is officially the first charitable campaign created and run by Mashable. We are certainly not experts in this field and we are trying to put our best foot forward, but sometimes we make mistakes. Many readers have come to me personally to offer advice and help to improve the campaign and create a better experience for our readers and the charities involved.

GL: Tell us about the wrap-up event in New York on August 28.  What do you hope it will do?

AH: Our wrap-up event at the 92nd Street Y in New York on August 28th will be both educational and celebratory. We plan to bring together industry leaders, representatives from a number of charities and organizations involved in the social media space, and members of our diverse audience for a day of learning and networking that we hope will lead to future collaborations and partnerships in the social media for good space.

Additionally, since 100% of ticket sales will be donated to our fund equally benefiting LIVESTRONG, The Humane Society, WWF, and Oxfam America, we hope to be able to add a large contribution to our ongoing online efforts.

GL: Midway through your effort, you’ve launched the #findthegood hashtag with the series.  What’s your goal there?

AH: #FindingTheGood was the theme for one of our week-long series that just concluded. The idea and goal behind it was to share, by using our influence, the other charitable projects out there that fit the theme of “Social Media for Social Good”.

Each day we shared a story about our charities involved (The Humane Society, LiveSTRONG, Oxfam America and WWF), and in addition we shared stories about other organizations’ and individuals’ initiatives and programs as well. However, this wasn’t just about Mashable’s coverage, it was about getting our communities involved and having them to share their “finds” as well. Although the “official” #FindingTheGood week has ended, we hope that this theme/concept and hashtag will live on.

GL: What will Mashable do in this space after the summer ends?

AH: We’ve always been great proponents of charitable organizations and projects using social media. This will not change. Through emails, comments and contacts, The Summer of Social Good has made us more aware of a huge spectrum of projects and organizations out there that previously were not on our radar. With the new audience and relationships in this space, we plan to become more involved.

GL: What has been the big takeaway from this initiative from your perspective?

AH: Thus far we’ve had two major takeaways: The first is that our community rocks! The second is that there is still a lot to learn and improve upon and I’m excited to do that.

About Adam Hirsch

Adam Hirsch, Chief Operations Officer, joined Mashable in Fall of 2007 as Community and Marketing Manager. Adam oversees Mashable’s business development, including marketing, partnerships, advertising and sponsorships, and events. His initiatives include the Open Web Awards and Summer of Social Good, as well as event series such as the Summer Mash Tour of 2008 and the 92YTribeca NextUp NYC educational series.

As Pete Cashmore’s “2nd in Command," Adam is always on the hunt for partnerships and opportunities to improve Mashable and connect with its dedicated readership. Adam is a New York City native and a graduate of Cornell University.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Interviews, social cause | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (3)
Jun 4 2009

GM’s Chris Barger on the Bankruptcy and Reinvention Conversation Part I

June 4, 2009 – 10:59 pm

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There’s been no greater use of social media during a crisis moment than GM”s use of these tools during the past week. GM’s head of social media Chris Barger took some time out of his incredibly busy week to answer some questions on GM’s efforts this week, and moving forward.

GL: You used social media as part of your larger integrated campaign to communicate through the bankruptcy. How did it work as a crisis tool?

CB: I think it was a critical piece of the strategy – because it was the one set of media where we could *respond* to people and answer questions, and listen to their thoughts. We had a lot of information to get out and we certainly used social media to help convey it, but the real value for us as a crisis tool was in the ability to interact, explain and go deeper with audiences.

I would like to think they got more out of interacting with us than they would have from just hearing the messages delivered through traditional media. I also think that there’s now an expectation — of companies in general, but especially those in our situation, accountable to the us taxpayer — that we should/will be engaged in social media conversations… Had we not been, i think it would have been deemed a failure — so some of the “crisis tool” value was actually in heading off potential other criticism.

GL: GM is used to the negative voices. I am sure you heard some positive, hopeful voices, too. Did the social web detract or empower GM employees this week?

CB: This was the most unexpected thing for me of the whole week — and was a wonderful surprise. I expected that we would get ‘killed’ out there and that in engaging in Twitter, FB, blogs, etc., I had my team set up to personally bear the brunt of people’s anger. Instead, we largely found the opposite to be true.

People seemed to like that we were out there trying to be genuine, trying to answer as honestly as we could; people seemed to respect the individual courage it took for our people to be out in the social web this week. Most people — even the ones who are really angry at gm or at what’s happening right now — were very kind to us, sent us public or private encouragement…

We in the social world always talk about how social humanizes an organization, but the converse also took place for us this week: it humanized the audience. The encouragement we received genuinely kept us going; when even many detractors were polite and even gracious about engaging with us, it really made everything easier to go through. This grace and courtesy we saw from 90% of the audience was the most wonderful and appreciated surprise.

GL: One thing that became apparent during the outreach was GM’s focus on team social media as opposed to a singular voice. How does that different approach empower GM?

CB: On a purely practical level it enabled us to better engage this week; there was no way that a singular voice or ‘brandividual’ could have taken part in all the conversations that we needed to be in. However, many conversations one person can be in at once, a team can engage exponentially.

More importantly, it avoids the concern of too-heavily associating your brand with an individual — and mitigates the danger of that individual leaving the company. Robert Scoble’s audience follows him wherever he goes; they didn’t automatically stay with Microsoft, for example. It is absolutely vital that gm be more human in our interactions, rather than ‘hiding behind a blue box’ logo. But we have more than one human, with more than one set of passions, more than one area of expertise. As much as my ego might enjoy being “Mr. GM in social media,” I think the company is better served in the long run by being represented by a platoon of voices, eventually even an army (It’s what I still admire about IBM’s approach.).

Most important of all, however, is this: the more pervasive a company’s use of these media, and the conversations and relationships that develop from them, the more genuinely responsive we become. All the learnings that i get from interactions online… Add my team and we multiply that benefit and those learnings by 6. Add in the extended team we built this week, and our learnings increase by 20x.

How much more responsive, customer-focused and better attuned could we be if we had 100 highly active people in social media? If we had 200? 500? 1000 or 5000? It would be an #epicfail on my part if i focused all those learnings and affinities on myself (or any single individual) and then relied on individuals’ power of persuasion and personality to imbue them in the organization; rather, i’d say that the more people gm plugs into conversation, the more genuinely connected and responsive we’ll be.

You can read Part II of this interview on the CRT/tanaka whatcanbe blog. Chris answers questions on whether detractors were correct, which social tools were best used in the crisis, and what’s next for GM on the social web.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Interviews, Social Networks, social media | Comments (23)
Mar 30 2009

Original Bloggers

March 30, 2009 – 10:08 am

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I recently read a post that dubbed me a pioneer, something that made me uncomfortable as I have only been blogging now for three years (original photo taken this weekend at the Cherry Blossom Festival). There were many that came before me that are still doing it… True pioneers. Let’s highlight some of these bright communicators in what can only be called a very subjective list.

Toby Bloomberg (on Twitter):  The Diva marketing blogger was the first major blogger to shed some light on this blog.  She served as a blog mentor of sorts when I was getting started, and still delivers great content and insights five years into her effort.

Brian Solis (on Twitter): Brian is at the forefront of the PR 2.0 movement and can only be deemed an A-Lister these days.  But back before he hit it big time, he helped me out with a great interview and Now Is Gone.  Brian still writes great blog posts regularly!

Kami Huyse (on Twitter): A no nonsense communicator, Kami keeps it real, always focused on the profession of communicating, and then how these tools may impact us.  Kami is one sharp cookie, and she’s a mom of three, and she practices, too. A true winner in my book (and a great friend), Kami started when I did, but was influential for me right out of the gate.

John Moore (on Twitter): I finally met Brand Autopsy author John Moore at SxSW. I’ve been reading him for years now, and he’s just darn brilliant.  Always a good read, quirky, and definitely an old-school blogger. Lot’s of great insights and takes on marketing here.

Liz Strauss (on Twitter): Talk about an original blogger, does it get any more original than Liz Strauss, author of the Successful Outstanding Blog and founder of SOBCON. I think not. Again, another blogger who still stands and delivers, and in Liz’s case, more than most.

Richard Becker (on Twitter): This man is a great conversationalist, a great communicator, and quite frankly is not into the popularity game we see online. What I like about Richard is his challenging blog. He makes you think, he pushes the envelope, and like Kami, gets down to the business of communicating.

OK, there are many more, but you get the point.  There are many great bloggers who have been around for a long time – some popular, some not – all of them great in their own right, pioneering and shaping this blogger’s mind and outlook. My thanks to all of them for shining in their own special ways.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Blogging, Internet Marketing, Interviews, PR | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (13)
Mar 16 2009

#sxsw: A Big Get Together

March 16, 2009 – 12:41 am

SXSW – What to say? It’s really a big get together and party featuring many folks in the industry that you already know. The sessions were OK, the business discussions alright, but really it’s an excuse for a big ole social jam. So in many ways, I’d rather show you SxSW rather than tell you about it. Here’s my SXSW portrait set on Flickr. And here are some of my favorite shots:

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Shannon Paul


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Chris Heuer


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Jason Baer and Beth Harte


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Doug Meacham


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Kaitlyn Wilkens


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Myself and Zena Weist


It was a pleasure seeing everyone there! Again, the full SXSW portrait set is on Flickr.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Interviews | Comments (0)
Feb 17 2009

Marketing to the Government with Jimmy Baker

February 17, 2009 – 12:25 am

winbizlarge-1.jpgWell, it’s certainly a hot topic with some, err, interesting posts going up right now. One of my favorites is this Mark Drapeau “goverati” post, which encapsulates the phenomena of the social media public sector swooning that’s going on currently.

It seems like a little context is needed right about now, so I asked my old buddy Jimmy Baker, an expert on the topic of sales and marketing technology products and services to government, to do an interview. Jimmy recently published a book “How to Win Business From the Government (Jimmy shares the same publisher as me).”

Before we get into the interview, some background information on why everyone is so interested in the government marketplace — beyond the Obama factor. The US Federal Government is one of the largest purchasers of information technology in the world. In 2009, the Federal Government is budgeted to spend over $70B in the purchase of information technology goods and services. If you are interested in this market, I highly suggest Jimmy’s book as it will literally teach you a step by step approach to researching the government, figuring out where the funding for IT deals exist, and creating an unforgettable presentation about your offering to the federal buyer.

BB: We are really in a time of change right now. How has the business of government changed in the last eight years as we end era of W and the Obama Administration begins?

JB: Whether you love George Bush or hate him, he did a really great job of making IT spending and programs very transparent to the citizen. As the Clinton-Gore administration was ended, we saw big government contracting shops closing down and the government was moving towards a more efficient way to buy goods and services through GWACs.

When Bush took over he created something called the Quick Silver Initiatives which was changing and improving the way government did business. We began to see agency’s have their programs monitored at www.expectmore.gov Business cases (300s) were publically posted on an agency’s web site. The budget was getting tracked using good accounting practices through LOBs (lines of business). For anyone selling and marketing to government- this is huge (I go into far more detail in the book on this information).

As we embrace our new President, I think the Obama-Biden administration has a really good platform to build from. Like many of us in the business, I am studying the new economic stimulus package and trying to help my clients be “shovel ready”.

BB: What do you think of the Government 2.0 Expert that has arisen?

JB: This is a hard question to answer. We still have not really seen what 2.0 will do in government like it has in the commercial marketplace. Over the last few years, we have seen the rise of many government blogs to help better inform the citizen about the government.

Our new president has his own blog at www.whitehouse.gov Just a few days ago I joined GovLoop which is like Face Book for government people. Because of the nature of government, I think many agencies will need to be careful about how much their employees speak to the public. I am sometimes surprised at how many people I find from government on Face Book and My Space and how they represent themselves to the public.

The other area that is exciting right now is the ease of use of video. Many agencies are using You Tube to reach out to their citizens. We have a very progressive CIO here in Cali where I live (Teri Takai) that uses You Tube all the time in a very wise and tactful manner to communicate her opinion. Instead of waiting for the news groups to show her information, she goes right to the masses.

This past August I was down in San Diego and had a chance to speak with Dan Green of the Navy. Dan said that many agencies are using the concept of social networks in a secure (government only access) way to collaborate on different programs and challenges.

To get back to your question, we are in the infancy of social media / web 2.0 and the impact of government. As we see the merger of video, social groups, and instant contact to people on whatever device they have, I think government will adapt with more citizen centric applications. There is a company called iQuestions that I think has a really good handle on where the Internet and social networks are going. The format of their site www.iquestions.com I think is the wave of the future for government and social media.

BB: How can social media types who are unfamiliar with how government works come up to speed quickly?

JB: Although the way we market is changing, there are some underline “Old School” principles to remember for anyone tech company that wants to get in the social media game. Always know who and where your target market is and what you should be telling them. What we now have to be aware of in 2009 is that our target market is very, very diverse and segmented.

You may need to promote a campaign several different ways to get the results you want using social media / web 2.0. Many of the retiring baby boomers are used to going to a web site and downloading a white paper. People who are in our age group (30 – 45) are used to adapting to whatever the new technology is and how it works. People in their teens and twenties will communicate and access information differently than ever before.

When my clients starting coming to me about how to use some of the social sites, I read two books that really helped me understand how social media work. I recommend reading Now is Gone and Wikinomics. In my book I take several pages to discuss marketing and branding in the new social media market place.

BB: Give me a little history about you and how you got started with your career in selling to government?

JB: After I graduated the University of Maryland with a BA in Speech Communication, I got a job with the Gazette Newspapers. I was responsible for selling ads to churches. What is funny about this is during the early 90’s there was a famous TV evangelist named Jim Bakker who was having some trouble in his personal life, business, and ministry.

So imagine trying to sell churches ads with the same name of the publically known-very problemed pastor. I used to get so many “Tammy Faye” jokes it wasn’t funny. Anyway, I was able to take lemons and make lemonade. A good friend of the family was looking for some sales people for his technology company. He said if you can sell church ads with the name “Jim Baker” then you should have no problem selling computers to the feds. As Paul Harvey says “and that’s the rest of the story.”

BB: Why did you write this book?

JB: I simply wanted to help small businesses. I was giving one of my talks around the beltway and someone from the Executive Office of the President said you really need to take what you are doing and put it into a book because so many businesses really lack the research and sales skills to penetrate the government market. Shortly after this, I put in for a copy right and began putting the book together.

BB: How is this different from other government books on the market?

JB: This book is meaty, tactical, and based on real experiences from selling and marketing to government. To my knowledge, there is not another book like this on the market. There are a few books that talk about government marketing at a very high level. There are also some books on proposal writing.

I think Jim Flyzik, President, The Flyzik Group, former Government CIO and CIO Magazine Hall of Fame Inductee said it best, “Jimmy’s book is the first time I’ve encountered so much useful information put together in one place. He obviously “gets it” when talking about the importance of knowing the uniqueness of the government customer and all the necessary nuances of developing business in this sector. The book is not only a great learning experience but also a useful reference manual for business developers and sales representatives. A good investment for companies looking to gain competitive edge.”

I encourage your readers to go to www.governmentbusinessbook.biz and read some of the reviews of the book.

BB: What can the reader expect to walk a way with after buying your book?

JB: Literally, this book is a step by step guide how to create a sales pipeline, find money, and present to the government end user. The goal of this book is to teach four things to help your business change how it goes after business in the federal information technology market:

1. Critical Research Tactics to better understand your Federal Customer

2. Building a qualified sales pipeline and executing a call plan

3. Learning how to articulate your value proposition so the government wants to buy your services

4. Marketing and branding your company- Most campaigns are designed to fail because they leave out one very critical component in their marketing and sales approach to the government.

Contact Jimmy Baker here. Order his new book How to Win Business from Government today!

 
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Jan 16 2009

Using Our Social Networks to Affect Change

January 16, 2009 – 11:37 am

In the past two years I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with great minds like Brian Solis on my book, and later folks like Toby Bloomberg, Jason Falls, Amber Naslund and Beth Harte on blog posts. This week I collaborated with Joseph Jaffe for one of his Jaffe Juice podcasts; a fantastic discussion about how we as social media voices have the power to affect great change with our social networks (download here).

We often get stuck in the conversations about marketing and communications here, but social networks are about people. And we have a great opportunity to make a difference every day and affect change. There are many ways to do that, including fundraising, political activism, education, and much more. We in many ways have an obligation as members of larger communities to do this.

We discussed Dave Armano’s effort to help a victim of domestic abuse. For further information and analysis see Beth’s blog for a marketplace discussion of Armano’s effort.

Postcard

We also talked about LComm’s project with Save Darfur, and were joined by Allyn Brooks, who talked about about Social Philanthropy and the Darfur crisis.

Our question to you, the social media consumer: What are you waiting for? Add your voice now: http://www.addyourvoice.org/ – send President Obama a postcard and play your part to Save Darfur. Or do something else and affect change within your network and the world… One person at a time.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Geoff, Internet Marketing, Interviews, Social Networks, social cause, social media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (5)
Jan 12 2009

The Nature Conservancy Protects Natural Ecosystems Online

January 12, 2009 – 2:00 pm

The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect the natural ecosystems that plants and animals need to survive. With over a million members, The Nature Conservancy has protected more than 119 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of rivers worldwide.

clip_image002Evan C. Parker, the Manager of Digital Membership at the Nature Conservancy, heads up the organization’s online communications efforts. For the past twelve years, Parker has specialized in mobilizing online audiences for nonprofit and political causes. Prior to joining the Conservancy in 2005, Evan led Congressman Bernie Sanders’ online outreach efforts.

BB: What was your biggest achievement on the social media front in 2008?

EP: Our social media efforts are really more about lots of small efforts over a wide area, as opposed to a deep dive in any one particular pool. As a result, our achievements tend to be targeted, and more distributed, as opposed to any one "big thing" to be singled out.

For example: this year we’ve past $100,000 and 50,000 friends on Facebook, our Flickr community saw it’s 100,000th picture posted, and we launched a really successful widget campaign through Plant A Billion Trees. They’re all great accomplishments, but they are built on a sturdy social media foundation that we’ve been developing — slow and steady — over the last three or four years.

BB: Tell us about your organization’s marketing/communications strategy for 2009. What big hairy audacious social media goals will help you achieve your objectives next year? Do you foresee any particularly enticing opportunities that can help nonprofits/causes reach their social media goals in 2009? Any advice for how to take advantage of related trends?

EP: It sounds so dull, but we are really looking for more of the same — we want to keep engaging our community of conservationists, on whatever networks/platforms that energize them. Obviously, that will mean a lot of work in the more traditional social media spaces — the Facebooks, the Flickrs — but we will certainly keep an ear to the ground for where our current/future supporters will be congregating next.

There seems to be a lot of real traction around online donation affinity programs lately, and that certainly looks promising to an organization like the Conservancy. People are looking for easy solutions to everyday problems, and that includes everyday ways they can support the causes that are most important to them.

BB: How do you plan to integrate your social media efforts with the rest of your marketing mix (e.g., direct mail, email marketing, mobile, media relations, etc.)?

EP: We’ve seen first hand that integrated marketing messages across channels is really a rising tide that lifts all boats. That being said, each element of a marketing mix appeals to a very specific audience, so the trick is all about figuring out which audiences can be best reached through which channels. So, as we kick off each marketing effort, we will think through the channels vs. the audiences, and roll our messages out to as many as we can.

BB: What is one challenge you face when executing new, social and/or digital media strategy? How are you overcoming this hurdle? What will be the final measure of success for your digital plans?

EP: In my mind, the biggest challenge in this space is always going to be time. Right now, our digital teams could easily put together a list of social media spaces that vastly outstrips the collective hours in our day, so we have to prioritize as best we can.

This, unfortunately, highlights the second biggest challenge inherent in social media, which is metrics. Unless we have good metrics, it’s impossible to gauge the success of social media efforts. Without success, it’s impossible to measure ROI. Without ROI, it’s impossible to figure out where we should be focusing our attentions.

It’s a bit of a vicious circle, but we will be focusing a lot of effort figuring out how we measure social media engagement, tie it back to traffic, and then track the long term value of our social media audiences over the next few years.

 
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