There were a lot of great new services and technologies that came out in 2009 to help the world of social and digital marketers.  In this last post of the year, I wanted to share the 4 that I have used on a daily basis and that I think can really help most B2B (and probably B2C) marketers increase the value of their social media programs.

4 B2B Social Media Tools from 2009

Social media is here to stay.  Social media is a fad.  Which is true?  I say both.

I wrote last week that digital marketing wasn't a piece of the marketing pie, it was a key ingredient in making the pie.  Well, social media is a key ingredient in leveraging digital marketing.  It is called out today as being a separate phenomenon.  Social media is being used as a buzzword. It is hot.  It is a fad.  I think the fad is calling it out as separate from digital marketing.  The long term reality is that social media is here to stay, and it should be embedded in the fabric of the digital marketing blanket, not a throw set on top.  

The ability to reach and engage with customers has changed and will continue to change as a result of digital connectivity - convergence, communities and content will evolve, not disappear.  There are two general observations on this front which have wide ranging implications for business today.

First, there are offline and online sales/marketing campaigns that might appropriately be kept independent of the other by virtue of the business objectives at hand.  However, the first assumption should be that they will be coordinated, and the exception are those times when the message is just better in the Wall Street Journal.  Most PR, marcomms, sales or branding campaigns simply benefit from a coordinated approach, with varying mixes.  And, as social media is part of the fabric of online, unless there are reasons not to include the social elements, they should be a component of all campaigns.  Any determination not to include social elements should be made on an enlightened basis, however, hand in hand with those who bring that expertise to the table, not due to a lack of understanding.

This gets to my second point.  Effective digital marketing requires enterprise wide change.  This sounds like a bold statement, but it really isn't a new one.  Traditional media can cut across multiple business units, including PR, marcomms, branding and sales.  Digital marketing 'bridges' these, as well as other departments such as legal, IT, CRM, product development and research and development.  It is just a different way to do business and interact with customers.  Done correctly, there is tremendous value to be realized through lower acquisition and customer service costs, higher customer service ratings, lower R&D costs, and so on.

Of course, there are legal elements related to most business units, but digital media will keep lawyers busy for a while developing new policies, procedures and precedents.  IT needs to ensure the right equipment, software and support are available, particularly if social media is being used by staff in addition to corporate initiatives.  Customer service through chat or Twitter really works to cut costs, both in head count and in addressing issues before they become crises or risks to your brand.  R&D can benefit from lower costs through crowd sourcing, and product development can benefit the same way through community evaluations.  This is very high level, and the tools for each vary, but they all exist today in the digital domain.

At New Marketing Labs see the challenges faced by large enterprises, both B2B and B2C, but we also have measured partner success gleaned from constructing and leveraging the digital bridge.  Businesses can lead or follow, but the land grab enabled by digital marketing is in the form of developing real relationships with customers.  Once these relationships are built, it will be very difficult for competing others to break the bonds.

What is your take on social media helping to build the digital bridge between different departments?  Have you seen it within your company?  If so, what were the results of it?

Photo by: WildVanilla

Forrester Research recently published a post about defining Paid, Owned and Earned Media and helping to categorize the types of media communicators utilize today.


Paid Media is the old school traditional advertising / sponsorship model for print, broadcast, radio or online.  This model of media is still driving most marketing budgets & programs today.

Owned Media is content and material created and produced by a Company or organization where they drive and control the messaging and distribution channels - be it videos, ebooks, case studies, customer testimonials, podcasts to be promoted through blogs, website, newsletter or branded social networks.

Earned Media used to be recognized as that third bucket dominated by traditional public relations & perhaps analyst relations programs.   The past few years it has expanded to encompass User Generated Content, Word of Mouth and the ever-misunderstood Viral Marketing Programs.

So, this begs the question of where do you focus on producing content that puts the heart, interests and needs of your customer first and you earn you way in?

2010 may be the year of earned media and customer attention where reviews, mentions of your brand with linkbacks and online conversations drive greater SEO and more cost effective sales, channels leads and drives cross-company collaboration.  But there is much more that can be added to Paid and Owned media to greatly expand the value of the committed marketing and communications funds and channel building to spur an ever dramatic increase in Earned Media.    We're seeing it more and more often - major ad buys are showcasing where to find them online.  Better yet, we're seeing ad buys pointing customer attention to where they can join the conversation with them - be it a website, Facebook or Twitter.

Owned media is rapidly moving beyond the static brochure-ware on the web.  Instead it is being viewed and created as a catalyst and fuel for conversation and yes, ultimately - Engagement.  Here in lies the greatest untapped communications, sales and business growth opportunities.   Content has always been King but it's important to remember that it became King for it fueled what was essentially more important - Engagement.

So as we move into 2010 find more ways to not only increase your earned media content but to also instill an active listening, monitoring, content producing, community building and sharing strategy that supports the needs of your marketing, industry and customers.  Execute this strategy properly and you will instill excitement, interest, and conversations.  That level of engagement when executed upon effectively will not only help grow your business but accelerate your earned media effectiveness 10 fold - within the next year.

What's your take on Paid, Owned and Earned Media?  Do you agree that 2010 will be the year of earned media through engagement?

Every few days, I wander into Twitter Search and Google Blogsearch and type in a few brands and product names. I look around to see who's complaining about these products or companies. Then, I see whether or not there's been any contact (at least out in the open) by the company or product line in question. 

The good news is that "more often than before," I see someone come to answer a negative comment or a frustrated blog posting. The bad news is that there are still many companies not responding. Many.

This is baseline customer service. A customer or prospective customer is complaining and no one's taking an action. The excuse? Well, they didn't fill out our official web form or they didn't call our 800 number. Do you think that will hold up for long?

How You Can Jump In and Listen

There are two levels of listening available for your company to take with regards to the social media space. You can start with some free tools cobbled together, and then, as you start to see some value, you can consider upgrading to professional tools. At New Marketing Labs, we help companies implement the professional tools, but more often than not, we start them by pointing out how to use the free stuff.

• Build a free listening station base by getting an account for Google Reader. This is a tool built for gathering up RSS feeds (RSS = Really Simple Syndication), and the way we'll build your free listening station is by plugging RSS feeds to your search results into the reader.
  
  
• Go to http:// search.twitter.com and plug in your desired search terms (your company, your product, things like that). There's a syntax to the searching. For instance, if you're searching for our company, I might plug in (in quotes) "New Marketing Labs" OR NML. The "OR" means that it'll return results based on either the name of the company, or our abbreviated name. Repeat this step as often as you want?
  
  
• When you get your search results, look for the "Feed for this query" in the upper right hand corner, after an orange RSS graphic. Right-click that link, and copy that link location. 
  
  
• Go back to Google Reader. Click "Add a Subscription" directly below the Google Reader logo, and paste the search result into that box. Click ADD.
  
  
• You've just entered a search result. 
  
  
• Now, go to http://blogsearch.google.com and type in a search query. When the results pop up, look down to the middle-left part of the screen, to where it says "Subscribe." Right-click the RSS link, select copy link, and then bring it back to Google Reader, where you'll do the "add subscription" and paste step again.
  
  
• After a few tweaks, you have yourself a free listening station.
  
  
• A few other sources: http://www.icerocket.com , http://twingly.com , http://news.google.com

What To Do With These Results

You will suddenly find lots of information. It might take some tweaking and prodding to make it more accurate. Once you've got the results such that you start seeing actionable information, what do you do with it? We recommend making the results available to both customer service and public relations. There are two reasons for this.

In some cases, someone's tweet or blog post will be an actual customer complaint. In other cases, it will be an opportunity for education, or perhaps conversion. This isn't always readily apparent. Making the results of listening a function of customer service overlooks opportunities for corporate storytelling and relationship opportunities. Making the results of listening a PR function means adding lag to someone's already frustrated customer problem. Besides, having two ears on the track is much better, as it will add to response time, opportunities for interpretation, and spread the work load.

Why Buy the Professional Tools?

The problem with the free tools is that they require a lot more work to interpret the data, and a lot more manual hand-holding, and a lot of holes in where to search. They're good enough for starting (and I'm using them for tracking some of my personal projects), but if you want the full picture, features like "group response options" and more, you'll need a professional tool.

We are friends or friendly with most of the professional tool makers in the listening space. We have the potential for bias. I'll list a few of the professional listening tools we're familiar with here, but know that the list isn't at all exhaustive, nor are we advocating one tool over another:

• Radian6
• Scout Labs
• Sysomos
• Crimson Hexagon
• Spiral16
• Nielsen Buzzmetrics
  
  

There are many more. They all have different values, different takes on listening, different mindsets on how to get the job done. I won't break out their values or merits here, but if you're going to evaluate listening tools (or if you want to work with New Marketing Labs and want us to evaluate them), you'd best consider at least these choices above, at the least.

Listening is Table Stakes

These days, using listening tools to field customer concerns as well as to hear potential opportunities for relationship-building is a must. Many companies have adopted at least the free methods, and several are moving into the professional tools. It's a heated space, investing-wise, and many new products are coming out every few months. Not having a listening platform is like not having a customer service function. 

What's your experience been so far? Have you used listening tools to augment your other functions? Are there other departments taking advantage of the information? What concerns do you have? We'd love to talk more.

Photo by: Steve Rhodes

According to StatCounter, Firefox 3.5 is now the world's most popular web browser, with a global market share of 22%.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Browser Version Market Share

Internet Explorer 7 started out 2009 with 41%, but has since dropped to 21%, getting edged out by its open source competitor.

So what does this change for designers and developers?

Well...nothing

IE6 Just Won't Die

To the dismay of just about every CSS developer, IE6 (a browser that launched in 2001), is still hanging on with a market share of 14%. This wouldn't be such a bad thing, were it not for the fact that IE6 doesn't abide by some of the most common web standards, such as transparent PNG Images and other CSS rules (see the box model bug).

Despite continuing campaigns to end the browser once and for all (including ie6nomore.com, ie6update.com, and others), it still remains an active part of the internet population, and a thorn in the side of CSS developers.

Some would argue that most of this IE6 retention comes from the corporate world, where users aren't allowed to install new applications or upgrade existing ones. I have seen lots of web architects defending the continued use of IE6 because they are running applications that rely on integration with SharePoint or some other Microsoft system.

Like these developers, I come from the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of thought, but isn't there a happy medium here?

Can't large corporations continue use of IE6, but also install a more standards compliant browser like Safari?

Can YOU Pass The Acid Test?

Over the last few years, web standards have become an important player in the battle for browser dominance. A set of web-based compliance tests known as the Acid Tests have been developed to assist software developers in creating standards compliant browsers.

Acid3, the latest version of the test, expands on the mainly CSS-based Acid2 to include tests for HTML5 and other JavaScript functionality that will play a big role in the next generation of web applications.

Interestingly enough, the only browser that completely passes the test is Safari, which only holds a 3% market share. Firefox 3.5 scores a commendable (but still "failing") 93/100, while Internet Explorer 9.0 scored a 32/100. This is to be expected, given the fact the tests were purposefully written so that every browser failed initially, and they are based on draft W3C standards that are not yet "official".

The Future Is Now

As we head into 2010, we will see the next generation of browsers work towards standards compliance, which will help designers and developers focus on the user experience instead of messing around with CSS hacks for a certain browser version.

I understand that most users could care less about standards-compliance, but whether they know it or not, their choice of browser is helping to nudge other companies (read Microsoft) towards standards compliance and a consistent web experience for everyone.

Now, if only we could get rid of IE6....

Photo credit: Preston Kemp.

No doubt it means something unique and special for everyone, honoring different traditions and creating new ones.   For my family, it's about the stories - the conversations in the kitchen - catching up and sharing moments among familiar faces, meeting news friends and creating new treasured moments.  

Sure - there may be thoughtful gifts and great food - but it's spirit of giving, the special care & thought behind the gift, the people, the shared conversations, anticipation of excitement that makes the Holidays so alive and full of wonder.

And I ask, what would Christmas be like - if boxes arrived without a story behind the gift?  If stockings were filled with packaging peanuts and a shipping invoice?  Or not being able to see the sheer joy and excitement of a child tearing into a present to find the latest Dr. Grordbort's Atomizer RayGun he's been dying for.  

That tends to be the experience many businesses exemplify online.   There may be some great content (Gifts) and a sense of branding (Tradition), but too often there is no heart, or sense of personal touch or community.   No place to share an experience and have a conversation with the business or others who are excited or have questions about their offerings.  

Businesses need to take a lead from 'ole Saint Nick and infuse a greater sense of spirit, wonder, family and community when it comes to engaging their customers.   Businesses need to instill a welcoming hearth for all to post pictures, videos, share their stories and comments of their experiences.  To be become engaged, listened to and passionate and excited - just as we are when we think about what excites us about the holidays.   Help your customers create and capture the treasured moments in their lives.

Also, thought I'd share some additional Holiday Treats:

• Behind the scenes: NORAD's Santa tracker - CNET News
  
  

• 10 Ways You'll Know Santa's Embraced Social Media - by David Alston with Radian6

• And be sure to say hello to Santa Claus over on Facebook who has over one million followers.

Happy Holidays!

Photo by: kapten

Anyone who has modeled ROI or IRR knows that inputs can be tweaked to get to the desired percentage or return.  That is why falling in love with a deal or program is so dangerous - you can always find a way to get to the return which justifies doing it.

That said, ROI is a necessary part of any business.  I share the philosophy that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.  Or sell it to your boss, for that matter.

A key in digital media is to understand the value drivers.  The key to understanding the value drivers is to understand the partner's underlying business and business objectives.  Understanding of the drivers and objectives, matched with digital channel skills, will enable the creation of a useful ROI model, based on direct or correlated data.  Cursory understanding or lip service, absent an old school push campaign or click to action, will probably beget a BS ROI measurement.  That is why New Markeitng Labs' most successful client relationships are partnerships, and include inputs from executives across business lines on both sides.

It helps to follow a few simple steps with the partner:

1. Meet with all stakeholders (PR, marketing-communications, IT, sales, branding, C-suite) to make sure you get the skinny on the business, the digital channel objectives, the internal politics, who controls the budget at hand and who is the digital channel's champion.
   
   
2. From this hodge podge of (often conflicting) interest groups, extrapolate what success really means to the partner, and work hard to understand the partner's true objectives in on and off line marketing.
   
   
3. Develop a campaign around these objectives, including a long discussion (up front) on what metrics will be tracked for success, what they will mean, and how they will be reported.
   
   
4. Build a business case - up front - on these metrics which justifies, or not, the investment.
   

This is 2010.  Enterprises are realizing that convergence is here, externally across platforms and internally across business units.  The digital channel is more than banners or social, and it impacts all parts of a business.  Digital is not a separate piece of the marketing pie, it is one of the ingredients.  The proportion of spend dedicated to digital is going up, and so are the eyeballs on the projects.  Without metrics, a partner will ultimately fail to achieve much, and the budget will disappear.

I was at a reception last week where someone told me about a social media campaign he had just run.  He said he had gained x thousand Facebook followers.  Then he looked at me and asked me if that was good.  I had no idea.  And, he didn't either.  Make sure the metrics are relevant.

And, what if the data being measured shows a poor ROI?  Give it ample time, then change the metric or the program.  Fast.  It doesn't take months to turn the digital boat around, it takes days.  If it can't be assessed with any certainty, figure out why and fix it.  If the answer continues not to make sense, change the team.

A recent Babson study reported that 84% of worldwide professionals using social media tools don't measure ROI.  This will change in 2010.  Digital budgets are growing, and so is knowledge and accountability.  I can't measure it, but I know it's true.

What are your thoughts on measuring ROI in social media?

Photo by: Darrren Hester

In working with our various clients at New Marketing Labs, we like to start with measurement as it aligns to goals. We're always excited that people want to work with us, but we also want to make sure their time isn't wasted by simply "doing social media."

To that end, we start with an understanding of our clients' goals, and work from there into what kinds of measurements we might come up with to help them with their success. I don't talk about specific clients (as that's not part of our contract), but I'll share the general way we're going about working with clients in 2010, so that you can get a sense of how we're doing what we do. (My goal is to open conversations about how social media can be used effectively as part of business communications, including marketing and channel development.)

Our 8 Questions

In working with clients, I have eight questions that I like to ask to get a sense of what we might be able to do to improve business:

1. How can we fill your sales funnel?
2. How can we improve engagement?
3. How can we improve exposure and coverage?
4. How are we empowering your community to interact?
5. How do we grow sales from your community?
6. How can we build a voice and a new stage for your ideas?
7. How do we bridge your offline experiences with your online presence?
8. How are we extending to the mobile environment?
9. 
   

These questions don't always line up with what our clients are seeking for help, but they always get the conversation going in the direction of finding goals that will drive needles to move. Not all eight have to be answered, but you can see the measurements that would determine whether we've hit the mark on the above goals. Some are rooted in PR-type practice. Others are more marketing-minded. Still others are sales-focused. That's intentional. I don't purify when I work. I want the holistic approach. (Sometimes, this is an issue when dealing with clients, as they have one budget from which to pay us, and I often want to work on things that will improve other groups who aren't paying.)

What We Seek for Each Engagement

Again, these aren't hard, fast rules, but we try to build the following into every engagement:

• Measurement (dashboard)
• Methods (our approach)
• Materials (people and digital resources)
• Database (are we growing the client's database/list?)
• Effort (what goes into the project)
• Education (we never give people fish)
• Interfaces (which parts of the business do/can we touch)
• Crisis (if something goes wrong, then what?)
• Deep Wiring (can we build beyond just "marketing?")

When building our projects, we seek to work more like partners and channel developers than an agency. We're not there to come up with ideas and let others do all the work. We want to work side-by-side with our clients, and become partners in success. Having the above all answered helps us out in this regard.

But what about measuring?

Measurements

I'm fond of saying that my favorite measurement is the one with a dollar sign attached. I like helping companies find revenue. Barring that, or around that, we look at different measures for different projects. It depends on what the goals were, and the strategy we used to get there. Here are some sample measurements we've used at New Marketing Labs in the past:

This is is by NO MEANS inclusive of all the things we track.

• % of online conversation (versus competitor).
• % of coverage improvement.
• # of new subscribers/attendees/buyers via tracking links.
• # of new threads, comments, conversations for engagements.
• # of actions taken (for instance, on email newsletters).
• increase in $ per visitor, monthly average.
• # of leads
• # of sales call conversions
• unique visitors (all those basic web metrics)
• more

It depends what we're aiming for as to what we can work on delivering. To me, there are dozens and dozens of other ways to do metrics. (Resources are below.)

So Far, So Good

Our goal when we launched NML was to help companies figure out how to be human at a distance and what it means for business communications, including sales, marketing, PR, customer service, and internal collaboration. We work like a lab. We try things, we experiment, we do things differently than the traditional teams that are out there. So far, we've had mostly good response for our efforts (no one gets 100% success).

I'm proud of the work we've done, and looking forward to what we've got ahead of us in 2010. In writing this up, I just wanted to talk a bit about how I think metrics and measurements can be attained for social media efforts. It's not rocket surgery (to quote the smart Boston folks who coined that at IMS Boston). We find goals for our clients, we find ways to measure our efforts, and we work to succeed. Repeat as necessary. Make sense?

How about you? What are you doing? What's your approach?

Want to see how others do metrics? Here's a huge list from Robin Broitman.

Photo credit aussiegall

Last week I gave a presentation on the top 10 tips to better blogging to the team at IDC Insights.   Below I am sharing some of the details of what I presented as well as my slides.  While the discussion that we had was far more interesting, I do hope that this overview is helpful.

10 Tips for Better Business Blogging

1. First Person / Familiar
   Blogs are meant to be your personal perspective and observations.  Unlike the rest of your corporate web site, they should be written in the first person and in a familiar tone to put a more personal face on your organization. While the language is first person and familiar, it still must be professional in business blogging.  For example: slang and idiomatic expressions should be avoided.
   
   
2. Find an Angle
   What makes a business blog work is that it humanizes the voice of your company and makes it approachable and interesting.  Find an angle on the topic that makes it important to you.
   
   
3. Images / Video
   While a picture is worth a thousand words, it also entices the reader into the blog post.  It helps to set the stage on what the post is about and how interesting the post may or may not be.  A good compelling image that accompanies your post will help to ensure that more individuals read your post.
   
   
4. Title 
   Titles help you break through the clutter and excite your audience.  Think of concise, clear, relevant and interesting titles to draw your audience in. Use of first person and numbers in titles also help to draw readers in.
   
   
5. Lists 
   Usability studies have proven that online reader's find lists more compelling that large blocks of test.  Lists help to structure thought and are a great center point for a blog post.
   
   
6. Stay concise
   Keep blog posts short and to the point.  500 to 800 words is a good guideline, but the occasional 200 word post is certainly allowed!
   
   
7. Maintain a schedule 
   Staying regular in your blog communications is critically important at many levels:
   
   • It sets expectations for your readers so that they can expect a regular pattern.
   • Search engines will also expect and look for this pattern and it will help the blog to rank higher.
   • It helps the writer to get used to creating regular content. 
     
   • Getting used to regular deadlines will help the blogger to constantly be thinking of new ideas and always be looking for new angles.
   
   
8. Invite discussion
   How you end a blog post is very important.  While some blog posts may be simple statements that do not invite opinions, the more interesting posts will be those that engage the readers and invite them to participate and continue the discussion.  Ending with a simple 'what do you think?' is rarely powerful enough to have the audience reach for the keyboard.  Here are some additional ideas to get your readers to comment:
   
   • Those are my Top 5 Examples of XXX: would love to hear what others have seen.  Please add in comments below!
   • Ask a specific, relevant question: How will regulation and compliance impact innovation at your organization in 2010?
   
   
9. Link to others
   Linking out to other organizations helps create visibility to those blogs and sites and to the search engines.  When you link to other bloggers it sends a clear message that you are listening and that you respect their thoughts and ideas.  It is a simple way to get them to notice your blog and potentially get them to comment back on one of your posts.
   
   
10. Keywords
    After you have completed a blog post, go back over it with the key industry search terms in mind and try to ensure that they are used throughout the post.  Search engines focus on blog posts for their use of key words and frequency of posts.  Blog posts are a tremendous resource for your organization to increase its natural search engine ranging and visibility when key industry terms are used regularly throughout all the posts.
    

What would you add? What have you found that helps you in your business blogging?  I would love to hear.

On a plane ride the other day, I started feverishly writing notes about what comes next for social media and its place in business communications. The companies who work with us buy into the belief that we're not only using tools like blogging, Twitter, Facebook, video and more for marketing, but that we're intending to take it deeper. We feel that these tools are as important to a company as the phone on your desk, or email. We see social software as the new nervous system and the new dialtone of an organization. With that in mind, here's what we're working on with clients in that regard, in the form of some questions.

How Do We Share? - We work through the various ways that social tools allow information to flow, internally and externally. We do this from a few perspectives: make the content WORTH sharing is first, and then make the technology easy to share is second. For instance, when we work with people on their live events, we build packages of tools together that will spread the video, the photos, the tweets, and all the other inspired content, so that their events extend further.

How Do We Develop Relationships That Yield? - We push that a big number isn't important; a number that indicates your loyal community is important. Relationship-building on the web goes beyond a hokey loyalty program tied to % off for purchase. We look for ways to improve community interaction, ways to empower our clients' customers, and other ways for people to feel more connected and valued than in the old models of marketing.  But, that doesn't mean that we don't measure social media efforts because we do.

How Do We Equip Better Interactions? - With so many people interested in how presence management (such as companies using Twitter as a means of connecting with customers and suppliers) changes the game, we're looking for ways to wire that deeper into the organization. Shouldn't your sales team know that your top customer is having a tough time at the office, so today might not be the day to try and collect on the payment due? What happens when hotels and airlines go beyond the customer service and reservations marketing and deeper into quality of service throughout the organization. Can we empower even more in that regard?

As New Marketing Labs moves deeper into 2010, that's what the team is planning on covering. We're extending our relationships with our current client partners, and we're excited to talk with people about what comes next for all these tools and how to integrate them into your marketing and communications efforts. It's your business; it's our passion.

Photo by: alexanderdrachmann