My friend Jason Breed who is the senior director of business development at Neighborhood America, which probably has one of the best developed social networking platforms in the industry, sent me a great post about the melting pot that is social media. Jason has a wonderful perspective and insight into what “large” companies perceive and what they want and ultimately what they need. Herein are is thoughts.

It’s very intriguing to me in my travels to listen to people discuss the term “social media”. People of all types and experience levels in the corporate space relate it, mostly as a negative connotation, to existing social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, etc or they relate it, still with negative connotation, to consumer marketing flops dating back to the GM “tell me what you think about Suburbans” snafu to more recently the Motrin Moms incident.

Other areas where social media gets used a lot is with web 2.0 initiatives. First, anyone still referring to versions of the internet have their own issues, next, the majority of the population still does not understand exactly what a blog, forum or certainly a wiki is or does. Why should they? They are a series of features and tools not solutions. When is the last time you woke up and said to your loved one, “can’t wait to forum today!”? While the tool sets have some social elements to them, there are many corporate blogs still run by the marketing department that are far from social. In fact, many still use them to self publish push messaging while fully moderating comments and publishing selected content. Something about lipstick and pigs come to mind here.

So what is social media, well it does include much of what is mentioned above however it also includes a whole world of opportunities that takes a bit more creativity to understand the possibilities.

To me, social media is simply a term of interaction. It has become a container term for a lot of things however it all comes down to enabling interactions. The ability to develop a cycle of communications between two or more parties either through online or mobile. Understanding this as a framework, you can apply this interaction to employee communications, consumer transactions, partners, CRM, BPM, shareholders, etc or any mix therein. In fact any department from construction to office management to sales, development, customer support, logistics management, public relations, human resources, and any other department you can think of can use the construct of developing better interactions (ie. Social media) to begin to solve traditional business issues.

When you get beyond simple marketing and word-of-mouth campaigns, it becomes much easier to understand how applying social elements to traditional processes can save time, costs or even increase revenues. Consider the traditional sales cycle that is manually touched 4-5 times before it gets into a sales funnel or CRM package. Using social elements, even a small sales team could manage a lot more information from customers with better purchasing metrics if you had a creative way to allow customers to automatically feed the CRM system on the front end through a professional (social) interaction.

For those who understand the construct that the social environment has allowed us to create though improved interactions beyond the obvious consumer marketing tactics, 2009 will truly be a very constructive and profitable year for businesses of all shapes and sizes

What are you selling? Who is going to buy it? Where will you find them?

The “What” encompasses the benefits and/or value that your customers and future customers receive from using your products or services. This is sometimes called a “value proposition” or WIIFM, “What’s in it for me?” from your prospects’ point of view. If you are able to quickly help your prospect understand the value you are offering you will be able to gain that prospect’s attention and have a conversation.

The “Who” is out of everyone in the entire world who might conceivably buy what you’re selling, who is most likely to buy what you’re selling? Who is mostly likely to buy a lot of what you are selling? And who is most likely to come back and buy again and again? These are the prospects that you want to call. Introductory calling should be very targeted. The more targeted you are, the better your results.

The “Where” is where will you find a list of those prospects? Once you have identified the “Who” (For example, industry, size of company, title of decision-maker…) it is not difficult to find lists. There are many, many resources available on line. In addition, if you live near a good library, business library and/or college/university library you may be able to find everything that you need at the library. Libraries have access to many databases that you can access for free. These days libraries have resources on line, you may not even have to leave your office.

Like most New Year’s Resolutions, most marketing goals are left unfulfilled - undone - incomplete - on a list of annual goals where the only thing that gets done is erasing the prior year and adding the new year…

Is this you?  Well, even if you won’t admit it, it is certainly most of us.

Here is how to change it in TWO simple steps:

1.  Decide on the ONE most important thing you WANT to accomplish.

2.  Do it.

Let me explain.  Most of my New Year’s Resolution lists fail because I put too many items on there.  It ends up being overwhelming.

I am not talking about simple, basic tasks.  I am talking about BIG things.  What are BIG things?  I dunno, depends.  Everyone has a different definition.  Start a blog?  Get a successful DRM campaign going?  Open a new sales channel?

But think big!  And notice I said “WANT” to accomplish.  Not “NEED” to accomplish.  If the mindset is that your goal is something you WANT to do, you will be more inspired to accomplish it.

To all those who say that achieving only ONE thing is too small?  I say if you accomplish the one - you will be inspired to take on the next.

The second step?  Just do it.  I promise that just getting started will be the hardest part.  And set a reasonable deadline to accomplishment with a clear understanding of what that is.  Without the deadline - it will be there waiting for you to add to the 2010 list.  I promise…

What is the one BIG thing you want to accomplish in 2009?

Todd Schnick.  Be Intrepid.  www.intrepid-llc.com

Now that stores are in full-swing with after-holidays markdowns, discounts, red-liners, or whatever else they call them, they're really telling consumers the same, basic thing: What we charged you before wasn’t what our stuff was really worth.

Now, I know that there's no merchandise theory of value like Marx once postulated underwrote the sweat equity of labor, but CAGR is an approximate measure of at least a core cost for products and services.  Add up the expenses of gruel, lead paint, and large shipping containers, and you've got a base price for most toys sold this year.  Oh, and don't forget the cost of all that glossy branding, and anything else that can be legally, if not wholly credibly, attributed to requirements for getting "on shelf."So Brand Name X costs Y.  Got it.

I might not like it, or agree with (or understand) the calculation, but I acknowledge it.  Price/benefits = value.It's only when you get into the complicated dance routine of supply vs. demand that the picture gets all out of whack.  Christmas, being the biggest gift-giving moment for the largest number of people in the Western World, creates a natural deadline: prior to December 25th, consumers need to buy things, so demand should push prices up.

 With that pressure relieved Christmas morning, prices can fall, as few shoppers are thinking ahead 364 days.Now, think of that switch on any given day, as any business changes pricing.  Maybe it's prompted by some complicated computer model identifying the optimum pain consumers will endure at any given moment.  Or perhaps it's because the store manager saw too much stuff gathering dust on the front table.

If the worth of stuff can change within days -- and sometimes quite dramatically, as a review of sale offers in today’s newspaper attests -- how does brand stay constant?

Branding absolutists will say that we're talking apples and oranges.  Brand equals emotional, associative, social, and then, perhaps lastly, functional benefits, while price is quite literally the ever-shifting cost for acquiring those benefits.  Sure, they correlate -- I can't sell a Hyundai for the price of a Lexus -- but people engage primarily with brands in a way irrespective of place, time and, generally, cost.Putting a brand on sale means consumers can get all those same benefits for a lesser price.

Sales are broadstroke CRM, or blunt, mass-media rewards for people who desire one brand or another.I say that such reasoning is illogical.  Consumer experiences of brands are inexorably woven within situational and behavioral details of space and time...i.e., experience isn't with brands as much as by, among, because, thereupon, with, and resulting from them.

 The context of reality is far more important that imagined position of brand.  Businesses know it picking prices, whether MSRP or sale.  So do consumers, when they learn to play the sale game.  Slashing prices the day after Christmas is a ritual, really, for which consumers plan, and the gash between "list" and "actual" cost is likely to be severe.

The half-life of any apparel pricing, especially women's fashion, is shorter, too.  And we're seeing that technology products don't age well, mostly, and car models change prices almost as often as the wind changes direction.With any number of bloggers, chatters, and Internet sites ready to remember, track, and predict these patterns, you'd have to be willfully blind to its implications for valuations of brands.

Because, as retailers try to make up with sale items all the sales they were unable to realize with regular pricing, they’re daring consumers to revalue what they're buying.  The greater the pricing variability, the less qualities of brand have any inherent value. Something that costs less due to the exigencies of sellers can never fully be worth more when it comes to the needs of buyers.

Sales are a chronic affliction for businesses, and a constant reminder to consumers that all the imagined promises of branding don't necessarily connect to the reality of prices.  This week's sales aren't price discounts; they're proof that efforts to sell stuff the remainder of the year will be attempted at inflated prices. 
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If you paid a visit to Barack Obama's Twitter page—you would see a moment frozen in time. The last message sent out was on November 5th, which on Twitter is a life time. It reads

Obama's Twitter profile has one of the most impressive number of followers you will see on the Social Network. Close to 160 thousand. While the office of president elect Obama continues to feed other media outlets such as video (here Obama gives a holiday greeting) it's unclear if the Twitter presence will continue to go on. I think it should. Here are 10 reasons:

1. Micro-Interactions
The Web has proven to be a fragmented medium and the Obama campaign did a steller job of coordinating a mass campaign with micro-interactions all over the internet. Twitter is small ecosystem that sparks large influence ripples. Sustaining a presence here can get people's attention very quickly.

2. Portabllity
Many Twitter subscribers receive updates via their mobile phones. While e-mail and video communications require sifting through noise to get to it, reaching people immediately in their pocket can be an effective way to communicate.

3. The Human Feed
As I talked about recently, Twitter acts as a sort of human powered filter. When people are engaged in it, they look to others to help make sense of information. Obama's account on Twitter could be used to direct people to relevant content, or in the event of dealing with the press—Obama (and/or his staff) can use it to directly tell their side of the story in real time.

4. Listening
It's likely that Obama's staff and the governent is monitoring conversations everywhere for a variety of reasons. Twitter becomes one more place to monitor and keeping the account active can help. While few people will expect Obama to "talk to them". It can be used to listen.

5. Lifestreaming
Team Obama must realize that they have an effective PR tool on their hand. For the first time in history, a president will have multiple lifestreams in place. Whether it's him or not, it's an opportunity to provide non sensitive information about Barack the man, not just the president. Presidents who come off as human—that we feel connected to tend to fare better.

6. Immediacy
As the Mumbai attacks have shown us, Twitter is a medium of immediacy. If there is a message of urgency that needs to go out quickly—Twitter can trigger a ripple effect and can even support links to sites with critical information. This could come in handy during a time of crisis.

7. Support
If you look at Obama's time line, it was mainly used as a campaign tactic to mobilize support—to let the people know where he would be and where they could join a rally. Twitter is an extremely effective tool for rallying people. Post election this could come in handy when legislation needs to get passed.

8. Convenience
It's just too covenient. Easier to update than a website, faster than a video and can be equally effective if done right.

9. Comittment
While the last Tweet in Obama's stream captured a memorable moment—it also sends the message that the communicaiton on Twitter was campaign based only (since it hasn't been updated since). Reviving the account and comitting to using it in an effective way would demonstrate a commitment to the near 160k followers and then some.

10. Change
Twitter's stream is liquid. It's an environment in constant flux—one that changes in an instant. This is a medium where it would make sense for a modern day presidet to have a presence in. It made sense during the campaign and it makes sense post campaign. 

Realistically, I would never imagine that a president could sustain a presence here—but thinking about the number of followers that was amassed (and continue to grow), I just wonder if there's a missed opportunity here if the account stays dormant or doesn't evolve. What do you think?

While many prefer to think of this as the holiday season, we all know that it really is the season of lists.  We all know that no sooner do people start trampling over each other at the malls the day after Thanksgiving, the pundits rush to create their best of and worst of lists. This was a bonus year as they got to add list like Top 10 things Obama did right to win; or 10 worst things Hillary wore at rallies etc.

So hey, why fight it, here is our lists of positive and negative developments in sales for 2008.

I’ll preface the list by saying that in my view there were two 2008’s, one before September, when global warming met the economy, causing lava to flow down Wall Street. The other after Washington raised a $700,000,000,000 levee to stop the flow.

3 Sales Positives of 2008:

• This one appears on both lists, that is the advancement and acceptance of tools available on the web that allow sales people to better manage their activities and interactions with clients.  Tools like social media and networks and other tools to research and address clients’ requirements.  Using tools like Digg, Reddit and Twitter to promote their cause.  As you get to the negative trends, I rail against the way some in the various tiers of media choose to promote or market this trend as being different from previous progress sales professionals have made.

• The return of cold calling!   With the economy causing budget cut backs and retrenching in most markets, sales people are having to go back to the most effective (when done right) way to reach decision makers.  While there is no denying that referrals are the preferred route, cold calling is proving to be a sought after skill.  While this is not new, many sales people are realising that overcoming their fear of cold calling is a must for survival.  This not new, last year a study highlighted in an article at Businessweek.com addressed the question “Is cold-calling really dead?”  Of course not, why just last week even the Financial Times proclaimed “A comeback for cold calling as chill sets in”

• The opportunity to work with some world class sales people and organizations who are continuously striving to improve themselves while helping their companies and clients achieve their objectives.  During the pre-melt down, they were facing conventional competitive factors.  After the melt down, they refocused on core skills and leveraged all available resources to meet the challenge and continue to grow sales, rather than using the economy as an excuse.  

3 Sales Negatives of 2008:

• The onslaught of articles and webinars which suddenly appeared after September, espousing how to  “Sell in a Recession”.  I should think that fundamental selling does not change based on the economy.  Degree of effort and difficulty certainly intensifies, but do you really need to be overwhelmed with the volume of articles that appeared.  In some cases, they contradicted many of the things they promoted in the past. 

• Sales 2.0, a great marketing concept, but I am not sure how it relates to real sales; that is for people on the street who have to deal with the day in day out realities of real prospects, real sales, real value.  Over and over I am told that Sales 2.0 is sales professionals fully leveraging the potential delivered by new tools like social media and other aspects of Web 2.0, and I think that is great, (see above), but I think it is way overstated.  But sales people have always leveraged the latest technology.  If we work it back, is the implication that Sales 1.0 was when they just used previous generation web tools like on demand CM, or sales portals, or lets even take it right back to the adaption of the web/internet e-mail, etc.  So when sales people adopted cell phones, was that Sales 0.5; the land phone Sales 0.0; and when they abandoned the horse for cars, was that Sales -0.5, no that was big, must have been Sales -1.0. 

• Obama as a sales god, this started in the summer right after he beat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, but really took off after the November election.  While no one would argue that there was a text book marketing case study, his victory is far from the way I would want my people to sell.  For a full discussion see The Making of Obama as President of Sales?, but suffice it to say that while this notion makes for good headlines, it hardly stands up to scrutiny.

In fact if you look at the three negative trends they have one thing in common, the blogosphere’s version of yellow journalism.  So let’s coin a phrase right here and now, yellow blogging, the art of catchy headlines and tag lines in lieu of substantive sales content.

Sell Well,
Tibor Shanto – The Pipeline

It’s the holiday season, that means time to relax and take a break from work right?  Well, not exactly.  2008 is pretty much over, companies are closed and business is slowing down.  However 2009 is just around the corner and we will be back into the swing of things pretty soon.  I think we should all use the holiday break to not only relax, but to do a social media/online presence check up on ourselves.  Now is the time to update all of your information online or to join that social network you’ve been eyeballing for the last month.  Next year is coming around fast so make sure you’re ready.  Here are a few things you might want to check on:

Linkedin

• update all of your information
• try to get a few relevant recommendations
• go through your inbox and requested invitations
• take a look at the groups you are currently a part of and see where you can build relationships
• scan over the new groups that are available and join the relevant ones, reach out and connect with people
• take a look a the applications available and see which ones can benefit you
• ask for any introductions if you need them

Twitter

• make sure your profile is complete with relevant information about you
• get an idea for who you’re following and who is following you, who can you collaborate/build relationships with?
• look over your tweeting frequency and how active your followers are with you

Facebook

• make sure you profile is completely filled out
• is your profile tasteful?  Perhaps you want to remove the pictures of you doing a keg-stand while you’re half naked (just an idea)?
• look over which applications are relevant and useful to you, maybe you want to sync your twitter profile with your facebook page?
• look over your groups and connections, you may be surprised who you are connected with
• reach out to people and start building relationships

Blog

• go over your posting frequency does it need to be tweaked?
• is your blog shareable, meaning do you have any social features enabled that will let users share your content?
• check your RSS feed, do you have one?  is it working?
• look over your design and sidebar, tweak if necessary; maybe it’s time for a new branded design? (mine coming soon)
• make sure all of the information on your blog and about page is up to date
• go through the wordpress plugin directory and see what plugins you might want to use on your site
• what sort of content are you covering on your blog?  how are you adding value?

Miscellaneous

• make sure you are using an analytics tool such as google analytics to track your traffic
• try to start some basic SEO, at the very least make sure you are ranking for your name (google yourself, what do you find?)  Her are some basic SEO tips to get you started:
  • Quick and Easy SEO Tips Title Tags
  • Quick and Easy SEO Tips Meta Descriptions
  • Quick and Easy SEO Tips URL Structure
• make sure you cross promote and link to your content from multiple platforms
• continuously build relationships, provide value, and network as much as possible
• even you haven’t created an online presence yet, do so now

2009 is going to be a “relationship” year so make sure you have a strong online presence and high quality content so that you can represent yourself effectively.

What other things would you recommend checking on for your social media or online presnece during the holidays?

Thanks for reading!

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Click below to play our Holiday video!

You might also enjoy some of the most popular posts from 2008:

• Cold Calling - How To Make It Work
• Pen Pals or Prospects?
• Sales Tips: Tales from a Gatekeeper
• Product Marketing and the Sales Process
• How to Write Your Elevator Pitch

Here's to a happy and prosperous 2009.

First, the backstory. Arrington’s open letter post to Scoble reads, in part:

What is the cost of this addiction? Well, I’ll put his family life aside, that’s his business. But his blog has clearly suffered. He now posts only a few times a week, sometimes sporadically writing multiple posts in a day but often skipping 3-4 days in between. A year ago, Robert wrote multiple posts, every day. I used to read his blog daily, now I visit once a week.

Scoble takes it in his stride, providing some good self-analysis of what he’s gained and lost by focusing his efforts away from his blog.

So, here’s my take.

When you use a third-party platform to build your brand, you always run the risk that the rug will be pulled out from under you. Don’t believe me, just ask those that had put the effort into building their network on Pownce.

Marketing Pilgrim is owned by me, operated by me, hosted by me. The investments made into building our audience–currently close to 13,000 daily readers–will, in theory, always be realized. Compare this to my use of Twitter. I love using Twitter, I love the social interaction, the conversations, and the ability to better connect with folks, but I make very little “investment” in Twitter. I know some folks that have built their entire reputation around their Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook community and I hope it’s always there for them.

However, aside from the obvious ramifications if any of these networks ever go the way of Pownce, we now have the “Scoble-dilemma”–sorry Robert. What is the Scoble-dilemma? When you’ve invested 2,000 hours into building your network elsewhere, you not only lose the momentum on your own blog, but how do you get that momentum back and how do you migrate your network to the next hot service?

What’s your take? Is it wise to invest so much time in building your social network, if it means sacrificing your blog’s momentum?

What about trust? Is it possible to separate them? Can you be trustworthy in your personal life, but not in business? Does one imply the other? And what do we think of someone we trust personally who is turns out to be untrustworthy in business?

Cue Bernie Madoff again. (No, we’re not done with him yet; Madoff is a rich vein of material).

Eric Wiener in the LA Times:

the reason so many Wall Street players couldn't believe their ears was they couldn't accept that Bernie Madoff, of all people, would have pulled something like this. "Not Bernie!" was a typical refrain.

And, from the New York Times:

Indeed, in the world of Jewish New York, where Mr. Madoff, 70, was raised and found success, he is largely still considered as a macher: a big-hearted big shot for whom philanthropy and family always intertwined with — and were equally as important as — finance.

It seems increasingly clear that Madoff was greatly aided in this by dozens of willing accomplices—aka banks, funds of funds, hedge funds, “feeder” funds. People who took their own percentage for assuring “due diligence” so that the fraud that took place could never take place. People who claim to be anguished "customers," but who willingly sold the snake oil downstream.

And always, they too are characterized by those who knew them as people of integrity, people you could trust. And, I suspect, they believe it of themselves.

Now, there is a code by which you lie to one group and are trusted by another. It is the code you can hear recited in Huckleberry Finn by the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords. The Hatfields and McCoys. The Montagues and the Jets, the Capulets and the Sharks. Or as it's taught in competitive strategy and too many sales programs: the Sellers and the Customers.

I continue to be astonished that the largest Madoff “victim,” Fairfield Greenwich Group, who made hundreds of millions from Madoff, is considering suing PricewaterhouseCoopers—its own auditor. Reportedly because, channeling Willie Sutton, that’s where the money is.

How does Fairfield’s Walter Noel explain that to the partner at PwC's Stamford office in charge of Fairfield's audit?

Hint, Mr. Noel: you can buy The Godfather here and start rehearsing the line. "It's not personal, it's business. It's not personal, it's business." Click your heels three times while you say it. And tell him 'trust me.' That way it'll sound personal, even when of course it's not.

A panel of 35 judges rated the submissions in 10 separate categories, awarding one Gold Medal and two Silver Medals in each. Each book was rated on five primary criteria: Authority, Readability, Content Relevance, Physical Quality & Writing Style.

The Winners?

Selling to Big Companies, my book, received tons of accolades! It was a Gold Medal winner in the Classics division. Plus, it won a Silver Medal in  the Sales Methodology and Industry-Specific divisions.

Getting into Big Companies, my CD program won a Silver Medal in the Sales Audio Programs division. It's focused on helping sellers crack into corporate accounts - something that's a real challenge these days.

Here's a list of ALL the 2008 Sales Book Award Winners.

General Sales
•  Gold Medal: Perfect Selling by Linda Richardson
•  Silver Medal: The Sales Operator by Brian Bieler
•  Silver Medal: Building Trust, Growing Sales by Daniel Adams

Classic Sales Books
•  Gold: Selling to Big Companies by Jill Konrath
•  Silver: Sell Like A Girl by Jeanne Worrick
•  Silver: Growing Great Sales Teams by Colleen Stanley
 
Sales Leadership
•  Gold: Coaching Salespeople Into Sales Champions by Keith Rosen
•  Silver: The Sales Manager's Mentor by Jeff Lehman
•  Silver: Sales Coaching by Linda Richardson

Sales Methodology
•  Gold: Reality Sells by Bill Guertin and Andrew Corbus
•  Silver: Selling to Big Companies by Jill Konrath
•  Silver: Selling Against The Goal by Kendra Lee
 
Sales Motivation
•  Gold: The All Star Sales Book by Billy Cox
•  Silver: Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager by Lee Salz
•  Silver: How To Be A Sales Super Star by Mark Tewart
 
Prospecting
•  Gold: The Real Secrets of the Top 20% by Mike Brooks
•  Silver: Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling by Sam Richter
•  Silver: 42 Rules of Cold Calling Executives by Mari Anne Vanella
 
Presenting
•  Gold: Presentations That Change Minds by Josh Gordon
•  Silver: Value Selling by Julie Thomas
•  Silver: The Selling Gap by Harlan Goerger and Greg Deal
 
Industry Specific
•  Gold: Salesopedia by Clayton Shold
•  Silver: Selling to Big Companies by Jill Konrath
 
Sales Audio Programs
•  Gold:  Nano Sales Books by Linda Richardson
•  Silver: Getting Into Big Companies by Jill Konrath
•  Silver: Sales Superstar by Tim Mulcahy
 
eBooks
•  Gold: 200 Sales Hunting Tips by Mark Hunter
•  Silver: Coffee's For Closers by SalesRoundup.com
•  Silver: The Staircase Principle by Terri Dunevant
 

The Landslide Sales Book of the Year
Perfect Selling by Linda Richardson

 

And finally, a big thanks to:
•  Jeb Blount from Sales Gravy for creating this long overdue
    recognition for sales books!
•  The team of dedicated, but anonymous evaluators who read
    many, many books in order to determine the winners.

If you’re thinking about using social media or just interested in what it could do for your brand, here are five questions you should be asking yourself in 2009. In fact, if you’ve got some free time over the next couple of  days why not ask yourself them early and steal a march on the competition.

1. Where are people talking about our brand already?

Even if you’re not actively using any social media yourselves, your customers almost certainly are. The first step any brand should take when thinking about social media is to see how customers are talking about you right now. Who is talking and what are they saying? And are these the kind of people and the kind of discussions that you think of when you think about your brand online? It is likely that the answer to these questions is no. Not because they are the wrong people, or because they are saying the wrong things. Just because real people on the web talk about things in different ways to the way the brand does. Knowing, who is talking about you, where and how they are discussing you can be a real education and should be the first step to anybody new to social media.

2. What social media are our competitors using? What’s best practice in the industry?

It can be very difficult to think of the best use you might make of social media from scratch. Indeed, many people take their inspiration from the likes of Facebook. A better approach is to look at what your competitors are doing and what best practice in your industry might be. Look at your competitor websites, and at other sites they might be sponsoring to see what they are doing and, perhaps more importantly, what of this is working and what isn’t. An informative approach can be to look in the forums to find threads where people are talking about their experience of using the site - what do actual users like (and dislike) about competitor sites, and what can you learn from this.

3. What channels do your customers use to interact with you at the moment?

Do you take a lot of calls from customers with questions or queries? Do you have well-used email forms? Do people come to the workplace and talk to you direct? Look at these channels and then investigate what people ask or talk to you about. Are you answering lots of the same questions? Do you have queries you just can’t answer? Are you using lots of internal resource interacting with customers in this way? Most brands will find that a good use of social media can help to channel their interactions with some customers or with all customers on some issues. If you analyse and understand these interactions, you can start to plan better how to use social media to better engage with the people who matter most to you.

4. What tools have you tried yourself?

It’s difficult to understand how social media tools work if you haven’t tried them for yourself. Have you shared photos online? Do you follow people on Twitter? Have you ever contributed to a forum or commented on a video. Think about what use you have made of social media and how you have contributed your own content to the web using these tools. Maybe try one or two - join a forum discussion, comment on somebody’s photo on Flickr, or maybe follow somebody on Twitter (if you don’t know anybody feel free to start with me). You will start to understand what it feels like to use social media tools and then will be in a better position to think about which are right for your customer.

5. What business aim will this contribute to?

Brands should only be using social media where it contributes to a specific business aim, now more than ever. This might be a very hard aim (I want to increase sales through our e-commerce platform by x, or I want to gather data on y customers) or it might be a softer one (I want to generate more ideas for the business, or I want to treat all our customers like they are the really special ones). Only when your use of social media is tied to a specific aim will you be able to get it right and make it measurable. Start with a large piece of paper on which you write all of your businesses objectives and for each one brainstorm ways in which social media might help. This piece of paper should serve as the blueprint for taking your ideas forward, testing and developing them and then starting to use social media in a sensible, targeted way.

Read all of our Five Things to Do in 2009 posts

Subscribe to updates from the FreshNetworks Blog

Some more reading

• Are customers the true BFF’s?
• Don’t Rush Into Social Media
• How Can We Keep the Passionate Community Without the Risk?
• Social media brings new risks for companies and employees…
• If You Remove the Social from Social Media Tools …

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But for self-described entrepreneurial companies the percentage was much lower, about one in three. Mid-sized companies weighed in at 43.8% and small businesses at 39.7%. The question is, "What do entrepreneurial companies do, that multinational corporations do not do, that makes them less of a price concession target?"I say it is that they move faster. A recession is not just a time of reduced buying activity, it is a time of profound business change. In changing times, companies that can adjust their value propositions quickly will keep the highest value in the eyes of customers. Entrepreneurial companies can simply move faster. I would love to hear your thoughts. Please post them!Download the survey for free (registration required) at The Customer Collective 

In 2009, marketers will step up to the plate to make sure the buyer is engaged from the beginning of their buying journey through to their purchase decision because that path will become as smooth as silk without a knotted mess at the hand off to sales."

Stories are often thought of as customer testimonials, case studies or one-time events by marketing. In this new age of storytelling, marketing needs to consider stories as they apply to buyer scenarios and introduce an overarching story theme from lead generation through customer conversion.

A marketing campaign story won’t be effective if it is disconnected from the company’s overall story. Stories are not just used in the way articles are written to inspire dialogue, but serve as the thread that pulls a buyer from interest through consideration to purchase.

Using a story theme helps provide consistency and continuity in your marketing programs. Likewise, buyers don’t care if that (for you) their status changes when they begin to interact with your salespeople. They will, however, notice if the story they hear from sales doesn’t have the same resonance and quality as the one they’ve participated in with marketing.

This means that instead of focusing only on how to create qualified opportunities marketing can handoff to sales, the story needs to reach farther through the pipeline to ensure the buyers’ engagement never wavers.

 A company’s story is:Oriented around prospects’ needs, priorities and perspectivesTold through every content and conversational exchange with your prospectsA way to make needed knowledge accessible and easily understoodFuel for pass-along conversations amongst decision makers, influencers and stakeholdersSupported by customer experiences, success stories, testimonials and referralsExtended across sales activities for the smooth transition of progressive relationships

Substantial enough that your prospects needn’t be forced to accept it in linear fashionMemorable You may also find value in my complimentary eBook: Why Marketing Stories Have CatchOther Marketing Vision Expansion Posts:Part 1: Marketing ContentPart 2: ListeningPart 3: Sales Enablement
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