Now you may or may not have dated recently, but we all have had experience with someone who comes on too strongly or is self-centered.  Let’s say you are at a bar and someone approaches you with the following:

I’m new in town.  Can you give me directions to your place? I can drive us there in my hot new bmw.

Even delivered as a joke, statements like that will probably put you in a negative frame of mind towards deliverer.  What if, instead, they said something like:

Hi.  How are you doing today?

Polite and seems interested in someone other than themselves.  The difference between two alternatives seems pretty obvious, but we see similar approaches in social networking (or even regular networking).  Here’s some comments I’ve gotten on various social networking sites:

Great to see you here!  I invite you to stop by my profile, sign my guestbook and check out my blogs! and while you’re there please add me to your list of friends I look forward to networking with you.

or

I’m not trying to sell you anything, but here are my areas of expertise: ____, ____, ____

I don’t know about you, but those types of introductions are real turn offs.  Information about yourself and your business should be in your profile.  If someone wants more information about what you do, they’ll look it up.  If you want to explore the network to find connections, don’t carpet bomb the place with what are essentially advertisements.  Take a few minutes to find people who might make a good connection and leave a more personal comment asking about their business, blog or website.  Read discussion posts, help people out and learn more about people from what they post.  If you think of social networking like dating, by being more personable and polite, I think you’ll find much more effective contacts and not annoy everyone.

Do you have any social networking horror stories you’d like to share?  Please do in the comments section below.

(photo by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: social networks, social media, internet marketing, social media marketing, social media strategy, internet business strategy

Want to know what’s hot on Twitter right now?  TwitScoop gives you a quick snapshot of the top words in a tag cloud that updates every 20 seconds.  Hover over any of the words to get a view of the last 5 tweets with that word highlighted.  Click on a word to get a graph of its usage over the past 6 hours, day or 3 days.  If you see an interesting tag cloud, click the “Tweet this cloud” button to save a snapshot of the page,  with the option to send a link to Twitter (its kind of like freezing time).  Here’s a link to the snapshot I saved of the twitter cloud.  A widget is also available to add the hot trends tag cloud to your blog or website. Or subscribe to TwitScoop on Twitter to be updated with links to top events.

For more in depth results, choose a keyword or username to search for.  Twitscoop will give you an overview of the tweets which you can click on to get more details - the last 20 tweets with the keyword highlighted and a graph of the usage over the past 6 hours, day or 3 days.  If there are new results, Twitscoop will periodically update the page with a reminder to refresh to see new results (which doesn’t interupt your current research). Click the “Tweet these results” button to save your results, giving you a link or an option to send a link to Twitter.  For examples, this is a link to the results for “social” that I just investigated.

TwitScoop is good tool to get a quick view of what’s going on or for research into what has been said about a certain topic (if it was within 3 days).  Unlike TweetScan, there isn’t an RSS feed to subscribe to results for periodic updates, but TwitScoop’s graphing capabilities can give you good information of how a topic is trending.

Technorati Tags: twitter, social networks, social media, internet marketing, social media marketing, social media strategy, internet business strategy

Twitter can be a powerful tool for getting your message out, but it also can become part of your business intelligence arsenal.  TweetScan can help you keep track of what is being said about your company and products and get updates via email, rss or on their website. You can scan up to five phrases for daily or weekly delivery.  Best of all, there are no ads or spam in the emails. It also can be used to check for lost replies and direct messages. TweetScan’s homepage has a keyword cloud representing hot topics on Twitter.  You can also search for specific keywords by particular users.

Using TweetScan for business intelligence may take a bit of experimentation.  Obvious keywords are your twitter username, company name and any brand names for products or services.  Less obvious keywords are those which may represent hot topics in your particular industry.  For those, try looking at industry blogs, forums and publications to see what’s hot and then use the TweetScan search functionality to see what people are saying about it.

Obviously this type of business intelligence works best if your industry has a large number of Twitter users.  But it can still be useful for keeping track of general industry topics.  Twitter’s usage is also growing fairly quickly since it easy to tweet from mobile phones, browsers and desktop applications.  From a business intelligence standpoint, it is a rich environment for research because Twitter users tend to be actively engaged in the community (even if they are only broadcasting and not interacting).

If you use Twitter for Business, please share in the comments how you keep track of conversations and important topics.

Technorati Tags: twitter, social networks, social media, internet marketing, internet consulting, internet business strategy

If you’ve decided to Twitter for your business, you may now be a bit overwhelmed with the influx of tweets.  How do you filter through them and keep track of contacts and conversations that matter?  TweetDeck is an excellent tool for business twittering that will bring some order to the chaos.

The genius behind TweetDeck is multiple panels that can be configured to make it easy to keep track of conversations.  First you have a panel that has the feed from all the people you are following.  Next there are panels for replies and direct messages, respectively.  To keep track of certain people, you can create groups and quickly add anyone to a group.  Lastly, to see what is hot in the Twitterosphere (Tweetosphere?), you can add a TwitScoop panel which will give you a tag cloud of the hot topics.

Managing contacts is also easy.  Clicking on the name under a tweet will bring up a user’s profile right inside a panel where you can see all their information and tweets, follow/unfollow them, or add them to a group.  There’s also a little plus sign under a tweet which will allow you to quickly add a person to a group.

Twittering (tweeting?) is easy with a update section that includes a way to shorten urls and add twitpics. With each tweet you have the option to retweet, favorite, direct message or reply, making having conversations a cornerstone of TweetDeck’s functionality.  And using Twitter for business is all about having conversations.

Technorati Tags: twitter, social networks, social media, internet marketing, internet consulting, internet business strategy

I spent the day at the Marketing Symposium at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.  In these tight economic times, many of the companies are spending a little more time in deciding where to allocate resources (both personnel and money), but the message that permeated all the presentations and panels was the need to innovate.  Here are some thoughts on how companies are driving innovation and tying it into their marketing strategies:

• Insights from one person are sometimes deeper than quantitative data
• Consumers don’t always know what they would want to buy
• Customers are evolving in their expectations of companies
• Link technical aspects of a product to brand identity and marketing
• Don’t ask customers “greed” questions (would you buy this if it was cheaper?)
• R&D is key to meet numbers and show growth
• Look for “weird and wonderfuls” - leaders in their niches for ideas and innovations
• Act like a “startup” without the rules of a big company to spur innovation

How is your company driving innovation?

Technorati Tags: innovation, marketing, internet marketing, internet business strategy

A profit center is a unit of an organization that generates both revenue and expenses. Its goal is to have revenue exceed expenses.  A cost center is a unit of an organization that generates expenses and has no responsibility for generating revenue. Its goal is to adhere to expense budgets. - AllBusiness Business Glossary

Not much wiggle room in that definition which is why I never trusted people who start blog posts by quoting dictionaries to make their points.  Ahem, anyway, IT is a cost center in the hearts and minds of many excellent business people that I have worked with over the years.  This has not changed much and the reason is thanks partially to and adherence to the canonical meaning of revenue and expenses that accounting teaches today.  I have a different view of IT which comes from my own experiences with departmental revenue and expenses.  I believe that IT can generate departmental “revenue” for a non-tech focused company by allowing that company to reduce expenses and increase sales.  Let me explain by revisiting our definitions.

Here is my modified definition of cost center.  A cost center is a unit of organization who’s costs of operation are not offset by the combination of both revenue and savings allocated to the organization.  Revenue allocation is something I will discuss in the next post, so lets table it for now.  Savings allocation sounds fishy, I know, but hear me out.  All departments have an operations cost associated with them which covers the salary overhead, equipment, training, etc.  For a fictitious department X, lets say operating costs are 100K.  Now, believe it or not, there are whole companies dedicated to doing from the outside what department X does for you internally.  They represent the real costs of having a need but not filling that need internally.  Lets say company Y can do what department X does for 75K.  Now, department X is a cost center because it has no savings for the company.  Fact is, this company may be looking at calling company Y in this case.

Now here comes IT to the rescue because they are able to write an application that drops the cost of operations of department X to 70K.  IT looks like a hero, department X is back in black and the company can keep 30K more next quarter thanks to automation.  This is what IT can bring to the table, the ability to find labor saving technology, processes, systems, services and solutions that make internal departments cheaper to operate.  Since in our definition of cost center we dealt with ‘allocated’ values, we can now see that 30K in savings is allocated to IT as way of saying ‘this is money that we saved because we have invested in our IT department’ .  The beauty of an good internal IT department is that the automation options exist throughout the company in all departments.  Savings allocations, even when conservatively estimated, can add up to huge sums in favor of classifying an IT department as a profit center.

Photo by uberculture

Yesterday we discussed some issues you should consider when deciding whether or not to twitter for your business.  Once you’ve decided to go forward, here’s how to get started:

Choose a Name

You’ll need a twitter name so that people can find you.  Usually businesses choose a name related to their company name or a particular brand.  If your name isn’t available, contact twitter.  According to their TOS, companies can gain control of names they own.

A little about you….

The bio and website information will give people an idea of what you do and why they might want to follow your updates.  These are especially important when people are searching for people to follow by keyword.

Publish your tweets

Setup your twitter feed on your blog and website, add your twitter address to your emails and other correspondence.  Twitter is a great way to quickly add snippits of information to your websites and keep in touch with your customers.

Welcome tweet

Even without any followers, make sure you at least have a welcome tweet.  People won’t follow you don’t have any tweets.

Find people to follow

You can use the twitter search to see if your customers already are on twitter, or find people to follow on blogs you read.  Many people will also follow you back when you follow them.

Listen & Respond

Listen to what’s being said and monitor twitter for mentions of your company and brands.  Politely respond to any concerns people have and to any questions you can be helpful with.

Be Relevant

Share relevant information with your customers via twitter.  Links to articles or posts of interest can be twittered.  Retweeting information others find can be a great way to connect too.

Keep Tweeting

You probably won’t find a twitter audience overnight, so keep sharing relevant information and use Twitter as another tool to connect with your customers.

Don’t Spam

While you need to keep providing good content, don’t overdo it.  Tweets should only be every so often else they get really annoying.  How often you can tweet depends on the tolerance of your audience, so it’ll take a bit of trial and error.  A few tweets per day should be safe.

Be Patient

It takes time to realize the benefits of Twitter.  Keep at it, keep listening and stay in the conversation.

What Twitter tips do you have?  Please share in the comments.

(photo by Lin Pernille Photography @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: twitter, social networks, social media, internet marketing, internet consulting, internet business strategy

Twitter has become fairly popular over the last year and is a powerful tool for communicating with your customers.  However, as with most business decisions, you should consider some things before you make your decision:

• Is Your Audience on Twitter? Search for some of the keywords important to your industry to see if your audience is on twitter.  Even if there are only some, it may be worth at least monitoring twitter.
• What’s being said? - If your customers and industry is on Twitter.  What are they saying?  You can use tools such as Tweetscan, Twitscoop and Twist to take a look at conversations and keywords.
• What will the effect be on your brand and reputation? For some brands, their reputation may be negatively affected if they are not actively participating on Twitter.  Everyone should be aware that anything said on Twitter will be around in the future via search engines.
• Who will tweet and monitor? It may be helpful to have multiple people using Twitter, but they should have a general idea of what is ok to say and what the plan is for using Twitter for the company.
• What persona will you use? Does your brand or company have a mascot or other persona you should use?  If multiple people are tweeting, make sure they aware of any personas.
• How will you integrate Twitter with your website and other marketing efforts? Twitter makes it fairly easy to include your tweets on other websites.  Where will you include it?  How will you let your customers know about it?
• To follow or not to follow? When people start following you on twitter, will you follow them in turn?  This may make it easier to follow conversations (and it is a nice gesture), but following unsavory feeds may not be a good idea either.  Deciding on a follow policy beforehand can make it easier.

If you are already using Twitter for your business, what did you consider beforehand?  What advice would you give to others who are trying to make the decision?

Technorati Tags: twitter, social networks, social media, internet marketing, internet consulting, internet business strategy

Now that you know a little more about what social media are, how do you use them for your business?

1. Listen to what your customers are saying, not just about you, but what their concerns and problems are.
2. Network with other companies and customers in your industry.  Get to know people.
3. Connect with potential customers and partners.
4. Share your expertise and information valuable to your niche.
5. Answer questions and help others.
6. Leads, for your company, but also for others in your network.
7. Market subtly within your areas of expertise by being a part of the conversation.
8. Reputation building, both for your company and for your personal brand.
9. Content to add to your website, blog, resources, etc.
10. Research what people think, what the next big thing will be, how to position yourself for the future.
11. Traffic being directed to your blog and website.

How do you use social media for your business?  Please add to this list in the comments section.

(photo by seier+seier+seier @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: social media, social media strategy, social networks, social networking, social media strategy, internet marketing, marketing

You may not be aware of whether you have a content management system (CMS) for your website.  However, if you have a system that allows you to change and add content to your website without coding in HTML or some other language (php, asp, etc.), then you probably do. I think having a CMS is key to making your website work for your business goals and here’s why:

Ease of updating content

Having great content that is updated regularly is key to attracting visitors to your site and getting repeat visits.  A good CMS will give you the ability to regularly update your content without having to have a developer hand code everything for you.

Multiple types of content

Sometimes it makes more sense to create a video to show how a product works than just having a written article.  You should be able to easily add different types of content to your website with a CMS, enhancing the customer experience.

Ability to publish to multiple channels at once

Most readers still come directly to your website, but others will read your content through an RSS feed, or on an aggregator site.  Having a CMS which supports XML (RSS) feeds will make it much easier for your content to get out into the wild and give your customers the option to read it however they want.

New features

If you choose a CMS with a good development cycle, you’ll be able to implement new features and ideas as they hit the market.  While a website doesn’t need to be cutting edge, it’s a good idea to keep up with features that most visitors expect.

Accessibility

While it isn’t dependent on a CMS, most CMS’ include good accessibility practices which allow your content to be visible to people on a wide variety of devices (mobile, text readers, etc.).  This will become even more important in the near future as the mobile market continues to grow.

Portability

A CMS usually stores all your content in a database so even if you move to another CMS it should be possible to migrate your content.  Many CMS’ have the ability to export your data in a way that can be imported elsewhere as well.  Having a site in HTML or some other language is also portable, but a CMS separates your content (important!) from the design and functionality of the site, making it much easier to switch to something else.

Focus development on differentiators

Having a CMS lets your developers focus on features that may differentiate you from your competition.  This helps put expenses into projects which are more easy to measure return on investment (ROI).

Let experts work in their expertise

Designers, programmers and consultants can still be very valuable to your business, but now they can focus on what they do best - making great, usable designs and functions to help you attain your business goals.

Support

A CMS is a product that comes along with its own support system.  If you have a custom-coded website and it breaks, you have to spend time and money getting it fixed, instead of running your business.

Summary

Even with a CMS there is a time for custom-coded features, but a CMS will give you the ability to spend effort on those features that will make a difference to your business instead of re-inventing the wheel.  One caveat - if your website is a product or service, you’ll obviously want to spend time developing that product.  But even then, you should still have some way to create and edit content on your site, and that still means a CMS of some kind.

(photo by dandeluca @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: CMS, content management system, content strategy, content, business website, business