Engage in PR

Twitter is such an interesting beast.  Even though we don’t want to keep track of our “followers”, we do. Each time a new followe signs up you get the email, so you invariably are aware whether what you are saying is reaching more and more people.  However, you were not really able to tell when people unfollowed your Tweets.  Oh sure you could go check out your Twitter Karma and try and parse it all together, but honestly, who as the time? That of course changed with the onset of Qwitter.

Qwitter is the simplest of tools: when someone unfollows you, you are alerted through email.  Plus it tells you when they unfollowed you, repeating that final, fatal tweet. I signed up immediately, thinking this would be a great way to watch how people unfollow me when I talk about the Red Sox or occassionaly when I stick my foot into the politweetcal cesspool. It’s now been about a month, and here are my three reactions:

1. Qwitter is NOT exclusive: Do you know that you can find out when people unfollow me, or Barack Obama? Basically you just input any Twitter username into Qwitter to find out when people unfollow them…which seems intrusive and a bit wrong.  Particularly when we start talking about corproate Twitter accounts.  Dear Qwitter, please add email validation linked to Twitter username, thank you.
2. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right:  I’ll admit it, I’ve altered the timing of unfollowing someone so that they don’t know exactly why I unfollowed them.  This may be wrong in the scope of ‘transparency’ and doesn’t give the person the right information, blah, blah, blah.  But when I wanted to unfollow someone because they are using Twitter as their personal branding platform I waited until I saw a mundane tweet and hit ‘unfollow’, because I know that they too are using Qwitter.
3. Feedback can be Fun: One person unfollowed me last week that I’ve known for several years and had been mutually following on Twitter for two years.  He unfollowed me. I was dismayed and sent him an email to find out why in an effort to see if I could improve in my communications.  The feedback was very positive and helped me understand how he was using Twitter, but it also made me think how helpful this can be for our corporate Twitter feed.

Are you using Qwitter? Has it changed the way you Tweet?

March, 2006: My first son was born.  Shortly afterwards I sent an email out to family, friends and colleagues.  I also called my immediate family and some of our best friends.

Yesterday: My second son is born.  Shortly afterwards my wife looked at me and in a somewhat defeated tone said “OK, you can Twitter it”.  One Twitter later everyone in my network knew that our son had been born whether on Twitter, Facebook,  FriendFeed or SMS.  I didn’t even send out an email.

Two and a half years and that is how different communications can become.

No worries though, we still called our close family and friends.  I’m not THAT into social media.

If you are part of an internal marketing department, at any level, you ultimately are working for the sales department. The folks who ‘carry the bag’ as they say are the ones who need business leads, brand awareness, sales collateral, website resources and much more. As a marketer, sales is your client.  What is the best way to learn from your client?  Spend as much time with them as possible.

Typically sales teams will get together on a quarterly basis to get trained on the latest products, share stories, collaborate on strategies and discuss what is working and what is not working.  During this time it is important for the marketing department to be very involved so that you can leave these sessions with a clear understanding of what this group needs. Fresh off of our quarterly sales meetings here are five things you can do to learn from sales.

1. Train on the product: Theoretically you must need to know how to use the product to either market or sell the product. Ask yourself, if a potential prospect walked through your office door and there was nobody else around could you show them how the product works and describe the main benefits?   Better yet; if you are on the phone with a reporter will you be able to better position your story having used the actual product? Um, yes! During sales meetings go through the same training as the team. You might not understand it all (remember, coming from a technology background here) but you will understand the pain points the team goes through and more importantly the questions they are asked by prospects.
2. Ask what did NOT work: Anyone can tell you what worked, but when you ask a larger group of sales folks what did NOT work you will typically get  a lot of quiet.  Followed by a few clearing of throats, until finally a few out spoken folks will finally tell you that the online media buy was pointless, that they don’t use the white papers and the press releases are too long.  Don’t be defensive, make notes and make changes!
3. Ask what does work: After you get beaten up a little on what did not work, time to hear about the good stuff, what did work and better yet what aren’t we trying.  You might just learn that they love the blog, Twitter rocks and what they really, really want is a poster…yep, a poster.
4. Listen to how they say it: We all listen to WHAT people say obviously, but listen to how they say what they say. Sales folks are obviously good at communicating with people, so body language speaks volumes and you can really tell how important a topic is to them by how they are sitting or how animated they become during a topic.  Watching body language has always been my way of prioritizing my to-do list.
5. Realize the differences: Perhaps it is shocking for some but sales people are NOT all the same.  It is important to realize the differences because they speak to their different challenges and needs.  This is particularly true for a global sales force.  Get to know these folks, their culture and what marketing strategies work in China versus Japan versus Germany, etc.  Use this knowledge in your marketing plan to segment by geographies and more.

What do you learn from sales?

Many of you who follow me on Twitter know the passion I have for the Red Sox. Earlier this morning as I struggled to sleep after an amazing game I thought about how my experience watching sports has changed so rapidly because of Social Media. Let’s take a small break from talking about social media best practices and lead generation to look at how something like Twitter or Facebook can ultimately change the way you experience a sporting event. And keeping with the week’s theme of telling stories using pictures:

And I filmed myself (can you say narcissism?) watching the bottom of the 9th:

And now we can share all the highlights we want:

Last week we introduced our first POSM (Practicioner of Social Media) and he was exuberant in his acceptance speech, I wish the orchestra hadn’t started playing that early, but hey, we have to get to the advertisers. Let’s hope number two is as tickled. Read this for a reminder of why I’m doing this rather than the traditional “social media best practices” meme.

Without further ado my friends, the second POSM:

Geoff Livingston, Livingston Communications and The Buzz Bin

The intersection of public relations and social media has been very difficult for some to understand and in the process feelings have been hurt, careers trampled upon and egos shattered.  Not for Geoff Livingston however, in fact it is quite the opposite.  I’ve “known” Geoff now for about 18 months from our time on Twitter, blogging, Social Media Breakfast and of course his terrific book “Now is Gone”.  Go ahead…ask me how many social media and/or marketing books I’ve read in the last 12 months (my wife can vouch):

1. Waiting for your Cat to Bark by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg
2. Media Rules! by Brian Reich
3. Now is Gone by Geoff Livingston

As a general rule I loathe “how-to do marketing” books, particularly the ones about Social Media (since there are two new ones each week anyhow). They are typically filled with pointless examples that have nothing to do with my business nor easy to understand techniques for the uninitiated.  These three books all break that mold and Geoff’s in particular.  The Now is Gone site continued the conversation (at the time) and Geoff was very interactive on The Buzz Bin blog and Twitter throughout the book process. He even visited Boston to talk about the book, one of several face-to-face events Geoff seems to do every week.  When we talk about social media being a mix of on and offline activities, Livingston lives up to that thought.

But in a social media industry full of ‘yes-men’ and ‘yes-women’ I think the part I appreciate the most about Geoff is his ability to disagree with folks, trends, tools and practices.  He brings a thoughtfully contrarian viewpoint to a conversation that all too often sees people just nodding in agreement with each other.

Let’s put it this way; Geoff often says what I’m thinking and is not afraid to call bullshit on ’social media experts’ that are creating unnecessary noise, and that includes myself. Anytime I see a post or a Tweet from Geoff I know it will be worthwhile.  At the same time, Geoff is constantly teaching folks through his blog on how to adapt to new media and evolve their skill sets.  This is what I liked the most about “Now is Gone”; its ability to teach people the best ways to make this new era of communications work for their company and themselves.

As with Todd before him, Geoff is a POSM who can admit when things go wrong, and do it in a transparent manner, involving the community.  The best example, of course, is the acquisition that never was and Geoff’s subsequent video post. You will also see this on a micro level with Geoff, who ferociously replies to comments on his blog, helping to always make it an interactive conversation. At the end of the day, Geoff is one of the five people who really got me moving in social media and henceforth will be known (at least on this blog) as one of the original five POSMs.

(Picture Credit: Pic of Geoff from David Alston)